What Does An Engineer Do?

Our Christmas was filled with lovely peace.  We were graced by company on Christmas Eve, a grandson and his girlfriend, shared our lunch and stayed to visit.  

A sweet daughter-in-law spent a night with us before flying to her home north of Seattle on Monday morning.  It was wonderful to have her to ourselves for a while.  She is a talented home schooler, sending her youngest son off to start Engineering classes at 15 and now at 17 has some chemistry, calculus,  and physics courses behind him.

It will seem much too soon to be taking our tree down Saturday and putting various table decorations away.  We expect a cold snow storm to arrive tonight so He Who Must Be Obeyed took the lights off of the bushes and White Spruce trees yesterday.

The Ace Hardware Sack and the Drill Do Not Even Seem Out of Place On Our Workhorse of a Table.

Holden Village Prayer Service

The last Holy Cross Advent service was a blessed 'thin place."   Marcus Borg writes that a thin place is anywhere our hearts are opened; he explains, it is one of those places where the veil between the visible world of our ordinary experience and the sacred presence of God momentarily lifts. Actually, it is a term from Celtic Christianity.


Our Pastors Jim and Jan have led us through the Holden Village Evening Prayer Service, most of it sung, Evening Hymn, Evening Thanksgiving , "Let my prayer rise up like incense before you..." and The Magnificat.    Last night Pastor Jim gave the homily on the words "Have no Fear."  It appears in the Bible 17 times, he told us, and those words were spoken by angles and by Jesus. Have no fear, he concluded.  It is such a comfort.  


  No humbug here, only Christmas.

Christmas or Bah Humbug?

In Puritans at Play (1995), Bruce Colin Daniels writes "Christmas occupied a special place in the ideological religious warfare of Reformation Europe." Most Anabaptists, Quakers, Congregational and Presbyterian Puritans, he observes, regarded the day as an abomination while Anglicans, Lutherans, the Dutch Reformed and other denominations celebrated the day as did Roman Catholics. When the Church of England promoted the Feast of the Nativity as a major religious holiday, the Puritans attacked it as "residual Papist idolatry".<sup>[1]

William Bradford's life was one sad event after another.  It is no wonder that he out did Scrooge in his observance of Christmas.  When the Mayflower, after 64 days at sea, anchored in present-day Province-town Harbor, Bradford volunteered to explore a suitable site for settlement. His getting caught in a deer trap made by Native Americans, nearly hauled him upside down. When he got back to the ship with the exploration group, he discovered that his wife had flung herself overboard the Mayflower and drowned.  By December 23, 1620 the group began building the colony's first house. Of the 150 Pilgrims, 100 of them died in an epidemic of sickness. 

Perhaps we enlightened folks have commercialized Christmas to the point that I can see the reason that Bradford frowned on Christmas.  I don't think we have to go to war among ourselves over it. Saint Paul agonized over the Corinthians;  he no doubt would have gotten on Facebook today to set the people straight.  (All I know I read on Wikipedia</sup>

Ice Candles

These two ice candles are the beginning of my freezing project.  They look so out of place on planter trays and should be lining the driveway out front.  Two more are in the making.

Don't miss upcoming solstice lunar eclipse on December 20 or 21 | Astronomy Essentials | EarthSky

Don't miss upcoming solstice lunar eclipse on December 20 or 21 | Astronomy Essentials | EarthSky

For the beauty of the Earth, for the beauty of the skies...

The Santa Barbara Independent Just the Hackers You Need

The Santa Barbara Independent Just the Hackers You Need

A grandson sent this to me this evening. He is one of the remarkable "hacker-smackers" of the future; and the future is now.

Bittersweet at Christmas Time

A few years ago He Who Must Be Obeyed came home from his brother's greenhouse, Elyria Gardens, with several bittersweet vines.  Last winter the snow was so deep for so long that the cotton tails ate the stems down to the dirt.  I thought they were goners, but no they came back. The vine on the back fence outdid itself with blooms and berries. It bloomed well into November.
Our native ones are orange and after a frost they burst open and look like flowers.  These are round and red and so colorful.  It is heartwarming to find such beauty out my bedroom window.  If you click on the picture it will enlarge and you can see the berries better.

Pears Galore

Summer's Bounty:  60 Quarts Done, More to Do

I married a man that can can.  It is amazing to watch him fill the three large kettles with freshly peeled and sliced pears. He is almost fanatical about sterilizing the jars, lids and funnels. I am not much help until it is time to wash up. He uses an apple peeler that he purchased at the hardware store.  

This year the pears were so sweet that only a fourth cup of sugar was added to a large kettle.  It is nice to know where one's food comes from, what is in it, and how sterile it is.  A dish of canned pears with cottage cheese and a few walnuts is oh, so good.

Bed Bugs

We shopped at a discount store this morning.  I found a wonderful winter blue cotton sweater with snowflakes across the front.  Land's End.  Good stuff.  But...I wasn't taking any chances on bedbugs so I threw it into the dryer with a load of dark clothes.

My friend and helper, Tutu, told me that one of her clients had bedbugs and she couldn't go there for three weeks.  Imagine that.  They brought them home from a motel on a trip.  She said that the exterminators had to heat the house up so hot and so long that it killed all the houseplants...and the bedbugs. One might think it would peel the paint off the walls.

My Mumu had all the legs of her beds in cans of kerosene before DDT came along.  The cowboys in the 1800's and early 1900's had more experiences with bedbugs than they could stand.  Did you ever hear of the bull pens at the hotels in the shipping towns?  Early day motels got the blame.

So today I get the poem about bedbugs from the Nebraska State Historical Society.

Simply Magazines

In the olden days when I was up to my knees in babies, five of my own and a newborn I cared for during the school year, my escape was to put at least half of them down for a nap and I would open a magazine and wish for things I would never have.  Some escape that was; but I thought it was at the time.  Sometimes a catalog would creep into my escape.  Fredrick's of Hollywood about killed our mail man as he would stumble over the obstacles in his way as he delivered mail door to door.

But back to my point which is that I discovered Google's magazine site.  It looks marvelous.  I simplified my life a few years ago by letting all of my magazine subscriptions expire except for two, my Lutheran Women Today and the South Dakota Magazine.  But here at the Google site, I can read at my leisure, don't have to save them up for a few years and then recycle them, and I have so many to choose from.  Actually that news came from Tip Hero: Your Guide to Saving Money.

Speaking of simplifying my life, I picked up round, square, oblong, small, large and assorted crocheted doilies from under every thing on the flat surfaces in my house.  I think I heard somewhere that this was the modern way, so I am trying it for a while.  I can't throw them away, of course, I might have to put them under everything again in the future.  When a person amuses themselves by these means it points obviously to a person that needs to get a life.

Favorite Carol / Favorite Church

In the bleak midwinter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter,

Long ago

Although the lyrics were written as a poem by English poet Christina Rossettibefore 1872, it was published posthumously in Rossetti's Poetic Works in 1904 and became a Christmas carol after it appeared in The English Hymnal in 1906 with a setting by Holst.

LibriVox

The subtitle to LibriVox is "acoustical liberation of books in the public domain."  What a treasure trove for me.  I suppose the laptop might be a little awkward to drag around the house as I find  a blanket, a pillow, and a cozy corner to listen to a story; or read one myself.  Almost as good as Kindle, but one will not find the newly published titles here.

What a nifty perk on the Internet, just for the taking, free audiobooks. This evening I browsed around and found a some random samples.  If you haven't heard a child's voice lately, "Twas the Night Before Christmas" read by a father and a child is charming.

Angus Heritage Honored

Hugh and Eleanor Ingalls

American Angus Association^® inducts six Angus enthusiasts into the Angus Heritage Foundation.

"A registered Angus owner since he was 12, Hugh Ingalls has been a strong advocate of the breed. From his first heifer calf, which his father, Lawrence, transferred to him in 1942, he has built a cow herd that won the 1983 American Angus Association-Centennial Angus Herd Award.

Ingalls’ grandfather purchased an Angus bull in 1895 with the registration certificate number 19975 and a hand-written pedigree, giving this herd the distinction of being the oldest Angus herd in South Dakota. 

He is the only recipient of both the “Stockman of the Year” award and the “Hall of Fame Silver Spur Award” from the Black Hills Stock Show. Ingalls is known as “a true stockman” who has unselfishly volunteered to promote the cattle industry and the Angus breed."

     What a blessing these two are to the cattle industry and to our family.  We honor their life long diligence and work. Hugh is a cowboy's cowboy and Eleanor is a ranch wife's roll-model. Beside that, they are kind and lovable.  Good looking also, I might add.

Lie to Me

I became so single minded that I thought about nothing else than getting my "Aunt Liz" work re-edited and printed; the task kept me from nearly everything that normal folks do.  Now the book is in boxes in the living room and I am happy to have it finished, imperfect as it is.

It still eats up a lot of computer memory as it is full of old photos. I have saved pieces of it under the strangest titles so it is taking some time to get it all deleted.  It ended up nearly 150 full pages in three sections, both making tables of contents and pagination were much more time consuming than writing the book.

When one takes so terribly long to finish a book project it courts problems.  I used two computers, three MS operating systems, and as many MS Word programs.  I was not about to let those things get me down even if it was a constant steep learning curve.  My Aunt Elizabeth was a kind and amazing woman.  I pray I have done her justice.

I certainly have a goodly number of things to be thankful for as we think about Thanksgiving coming up so soon. A kind reader called me on the phone to see if I was o.k. because I had been so absent from here .  A note to him: your photo in the South Dakota Magazine on page 83 is one of my favorites and I used it last year as my 'wallpaper' or whatever it is called for a long time.  I am thankful for you readers, very thankful.

The article "My Father the Painter" is still featured in the on line past issues.  Speaking of my dad, a son gave me an enlarged photo of him in his blacksmith shop behind his anvil.  I am going to have it framed and take it to the Harding County Museum in Buffalo, SD next time I get there.  The photo is a little close to my raw emotions and a tear blurs my sight when I think of him teaching me to weld when I was a high school girl. He was such a kind, quiet, unassuming man.

This is beginning to sound a little like "Dear Diary" so I am going to stop right here and do some other normal thing.  I do not intend to use this as a diary.  Up to now, though, I have not told an untruth here that I can think of.  I have been filling this up since 2004.

 There are times I wish I could write a novel and fill it up with a pack of lies.  That would be a change from history and biography.

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Little White High-Top Shoes

In the Ted Kooser column in the Sunday paper was an insightful verse on Parenting.  Kooser,  a Nebraskan, was the U.S. poet laureate from 2004-2006.  He included a poem about parenthood, and about letting go of children, by Chana Bloch, who lives in Berkeley, CA.

Through a Glass


On the crown of his head
where the fontanelle pulsed
between spongy bones,
a bald spot is forming, globed and sleek 
as a monk's tonsure.


I was the earliest pinch of civilization,
the one who laced him 
into shoe leather
when he stumbled into walking upright.
"Shoes are unfair to children," he'd 
grouse


Through a pane of glass
that shivers when the wind kicks up
I watch my son walk away.


He's out the door, up the street,
around
a couple of corners by now.
I'm in for life.
He trips; my hand flies out;


I yank it back.

Face to Face on Facebook

Starting a day with a good laugh is invigorating.  I found this on a 3rd cousin's Facebook page.  Maybe she is a first cousin three times removed.

Familial genetics are such a mystery.  I had babies that looked so similar that I could have taken this one home by mistake.

Excellent photo perhaps by a parent of this baby.

Magical

I have waited nearly all summer for "House."  The plan was to watch it from seven to eight and then go sauna and swim.  The program turned out like all the others.  Way too much intimacy for us, be it a hallucination or not.  The off button is an easy out.

After 10 or 15 minutes of 130 degree steam heat, just the thought of the pool was inviting.  The warm pool seemed cool enough and getting used to 88 degrees was a very quick adjustment.  If that were not enough, the moon was full and in the city lights only a couple of stars, or more likely planets, were visible.  No amount of planning could have made the evening more delightful.

Sauna

Perhaps I have come full circle.  My childhood was filled with visits to neighborhood sauna nights.  This summer He Who Must Be Obeyed has worked on making a sauna off of our back porch.  The Sauna stove with rocks has a Finnish name and works wonderfully.  We have sauna-ed three times now and plan another sauna this evening; to be cooled off in the heated pool.  I don't think that is even fair.  The childhood sauna never had the cold lake nor the snowbank cool-off.  It was completed with a steamy toweling off and getting dressed with all the neighborhood women talking in Finnish.  They could talk breathing in and breathing out.  It made for a lovely lullaby for a child who slept on the way home to my grandparent's sheep ranch.

My mother and I met relatives in Finland in the sauna.  Their summer cabin was on an island with a sauna connected to their boat launch.  The wooden floating dock must have been 70 feet to the end.  After a session in the steam, we all walked to the end of the bouncing dock for a dive into the cold Finland lake...about three times.    It was a no clothes, no towel, no swim suit event.  All women, grandma, mother, daughter, sister, wife, and small child welcoming the visitors from America with a sauna, we got new birch switches, we were scrubbed, rinsed, and given siima, a strange delicious mildly fermented lemon and raisin drink and finally taken to the cabin to the coffee table to meet the men.  How could one not feel like family!

My life has been full of these "Marcus Borg" thin places.  Those holy places where God is so close you can smell his presence.

Yard, Jungle, or What?

Sometimes it is hard to tell.

Is it a weed?  Is it a flower?

Whatever, it is a joy.

Cricket Cage

When the job moved us to Omaha in 1968 or 69, one of our little sons made a cricket cage and brought a Black Hills cricket with us in the car.  Both the cage and the singing cricket were really quite charming.  I don't know how we made it with no AC, five children, a big German Shepherd, and the cricket of course.

A few years ago I found a wire screened and plastic bug cage at a garage sale for my visiting grandchildren.  For a few summers it was filled with fire-flies but now as the grandchildren grew out of the bug stage, their grandmother has gone back into it.  The last time I was alone a few days a Praying Mantis found its way into the house and I put a door stop on it and waited until He Who Must Be Obeyed came home to save me from its prying eyes and long reaching front legs.

Last night a very loud cricket with an operatic voice sang in the living-room.  I thought I let it outside but no, as soon as I got back in bed, it began its loud song again, for a mate, I suppose.  If it tries to sing me to sleep tonight I am going to cage it and let it sing its heart out.  My only fear is that I will break its legs in my desperate attempt to get it in my cricket cage.

All of this does not sound very dignified for a grandmother.

A Bird in the Hand

Not only did I have a bird in my hand, I had it in a bug cage while it recovered from hitting our glass storm door.  I found the little yellow bellied wren on its back on the cement with a menacing cardinal watching it from atop the bird feeder.  I should have taken a photo of it.  It was so beautiful and small.  I gave it a few minutes to recover and freed it in the back yard.  It is a rare opportunity to have a bird in the hand.

As long as I can recall, I have had an affinity for a furry or feathered bundle with a beating heart.  Our morning started out with this pink nosed and toed pear eater.  After I got a picture of him, he went off to the humane society to be released a thousand feet/yards from his capture address.  It sounds like a revolving door to me, but maybe he will avoid this unpleasant experience.  I can't say I much liked his looks, but the flies did.

 Mouth open and showing teeth, it drooled.  So very unpleasant and unappealing.

I Knew it All Along!

" Finland declared best country in the world

Finns are delighted that a panel assembled by Newsweek magazine has decreed Finland the best country in the world, The Times of London reports.

The panel of economists and social policy experts measured countries according to quality of life, education, health, economic competitiveness and the political environment. Finland came first ahead of Switzerland and Sweden. The US and UK ranked 11th and 14th.

Aki Riihilahti, a player for the national football team, told The Times he thought Finns were "actually quite exceptional". Finnish handshakes were among the best in the world, he added."

           I love all things Finnish.  Well, except the alcohol problems.  One of my wishes is to relearn the language before I can no longer talk.  Imagine that, too old to talk.  

Isabella and Clio

KELO in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, ran a story on a friend's granddaughter who found her dog at the play "Annie" in Sioux City.  I heard it from Isabella's grandmother yesterday.  Isabella is the oldest of the four little girls.  This is a photo of a beautiful happy mother who literally has her hands full.  Click the link KELO for the video news.

An Anniversary

August 7, 1954.

Roofers Stargazing

Back in my teaching career days, I had a student that had such a quick wit that he was a delight to be around.  He is on face-book and when I wrote on my wall that I have shingles and felt like I had bumped my head on a cabinet corner, his retort was 'roofers on a roof seeing stars'. How delightful.  You know what they say about punning, it is most certainly true, as we memorized in our confirmation lessons.

My awakening dream took me back to my teaching days and the high school where I worked for 16 years as a television production teacher with a group that put the school news on the cox cable access channel in Omaha.  My nightmares have gone from rattlesnakes to teaching and I can see the correlation.  Anyway, I felt such profound relief, in my dream, when I told a fellow teacher that this would be my last year.  "Now, if I taught say, English Literature, I might go on."  How strange is that a thing to say.  Maybe not too much so;  I got my first ulcer with those cable deadlines.

I found out what the facial shingles really feel like this morning after my spinal- stenosis med wore off during the night.  I felt like I had been kicked in the face by a horse.  Thank heaven the nerve medication works for the shingles also.  I don't mean to rattle on about myself so much.  Life is so much more than our bodily miscreants.

Again today, I will work on the errors in my Liz book, while learning MS Office Word 2010.  All of those upgrades in the past three years would give anyone the roofer's stargazing syndrome.  However, I find things in this upgrade much more to my liking, even if the learning curve is still there.  Hopefully, I can master a little bit of it that I need to plod on.

Rattlesnake Venim Like Warfarin

It is remarkable that our prairie ancestors, nor their 12 children, nor their innumerable off spring, ever were bitten by rattlesnakes on that northwest South Dakota prairie.  The immigrant father made the children moccasins which were not protection for the fangs of a snake, and not much better for the cactus on the flats.  Ranching was close to the ground work and no hole, outcrop of rock, nor patch of brush was off limits.

A home town son, grown man now, was bitten by a rattlesnake recently and was so near death the ER doctors did not think he would live.  His loss of blood was startling and the antivenin and transfusions were nearly non stop for the first days.  The snake got him in the ankle and right into an artery, he went unconscious immediately.  A heroin found him just when he was bitten and called 911.

I wonder what you think of the Facebook phenomenon?  When I first signed on I found it so overwhelming after two days that I went off and didn't log into it for many days.

A few days ago I had a fairly long discussion in the little box on Facebook, with a brother in law who was on at the same time.  He wondered why I didn't call for his email address instead of having him email it to me.  I told him I was a phonophobe.  I would rather write three pages of stuff than dial a phone.  He thought it very odd.  Another brother in law asked HWMBO why I didn't talk to him on the phone.  He told him I don't talk to anyone.

I do, of course, talk to people on the phone.  In fact on the days that I feel lonely and friendless, I am glad for a telemarketer who is taking a poll and has lots of questions.  When I call the Microsoft help people in India, it is nice to know what time it is there and how is the weather?  I spoke to a Sony Television fellow from the Manila who helped me find all those digital channels that the new sets decode without purchasing cable.  It took forever for both of us, me letting the channels roll along, he waiting.  We got quite well acquainted.  When that was done, I could have gone through the same thing for the analog channels but I was exhausted and he probably needed to clear his head.

But I can't go on and on this way about the telephone.  Once I wished I had a cell phone.  What would I do with it but call AAA with a car problem.  Not having driven for a couple of years, I sure don't need one anymore.  I can put a house phone beside the walking machine, if I think I will fall off of that.

Wounded Healers

Listening With Our Wounds
"To enter into solidarity with a suffering person does not mean that we have to talk with that person about our own suffering. Speaking about our own pain is seldom helpful for someone who is in pain. A wounded healer is someone who can listen to a person in pain without having to speak about his or her own wounds. When we have lived through a painful depression, we can listen with great attentiveness and love to a depressed friend without mentioning our experience. Mostly it is better not to direct a suffering person's attention to ourselves. We have to trust that our own bandaged wounds will allow us to listen to others with our whole beings. That is healing."  Henri Nouwen

That Henri Nouwen had a lot to say about the human condition.  I suppose we all need a wounded healer as a listener now and then and sometimes on a daily basis for a spell.  I am not indicating that I need a listener just at the moment; only recalling when I could have used one.  I think about others that need this sort of listener.  My brother in law at the moment is suffering the wrath of Guillian-Barre' Syndrome.  What a wicked disease.

Our trip to the Black Hills to my maternal family reunion was balm to my soul, as I so seldom see my own relatives.  I took my three year project to give away in the "Proof Copy" state in which I still am at the moment.  So swallowing my pride, with my humble hat in hand, I gifted 80 copies to the relatives of my "Aunt Liz."  During the period of research, editing, writing, scanning in photos, and thinking on those brave immigrants, I fell in love with all of them once more.  I say all, as Aunt Elizabeth was my Grandmother's sister and one of 12 children of their parents who immigrated from Finland at the ages of 19 and 15.

I will work again on proof reading.  He Who Must Be Obeyed is an excellent proof reader and he indicated he will read it a few times, also.  Then I will send a couple of copies and request a copyright and cataloging  from the Library of Congress.  I am not certain if it would have a wide enough audience to seek a 'real' publisher or not.  Perhaps I will querry the SD State Historical Society to see if they might be interested.

It is good to be back here again.  Thanks to you dear readers who have checked to see if I am back online.

Tankaceratops sacrisonorum

Talk about wild life!  This herbivore lived right over the hill northwest of the Cave Hills buttes in my header at the moment; albeit his family probably ate the lush jungle plants 65.5 million years ago.  Today they have all gone to oil except for the fossil remains of  more dinosaurs than one can shake a stick at...while threatening the rattlesnakes of today.  How amazing and how good to have cousins that doggedly dig and come up with new bones with no names..until now!

A few years ago another dinosaur was named "Willo" for the rancher's wife on whose land it was found.  Now my own maiden name shares a little of that glory.

 I first read about it in my home town newspaper, Nation's Center News.  Google directed me to a few more sites worth exploring.

" This skull and its accompanying partial skeleton were discovered and collected nearly a decade ago by Stan and Steve Sacrison, respectively of Buffalo and Bison, South Dakota, in the Hell Creek Formation of Harding County. These twin brothers have distinguished themselves over the years in their paleontological discoveries that include three Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons. One of these, "STAN," is the second most complete T. rex skeleton ever discovered.

Implications of this discovery point to concerns held by scientists regarding the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline, which crosses Montana and South Dakota near other important paleontological sites."

The genus Tatankaceratops is derived from "Tatanka," the Lakota name for the American Bison (Bison bison), in reference to a similarity in size between the two animals. The name also intends to honor the Lakota Sioux Tribe who inhabited the region. The Latin "ceratops," means "horn face," and is commonly included in the names of creatures in this category. The species name, sacrisonorum, is a tip of the hat to Stan and Steve Sacrison. The new specimen, # BHI6226, is reposited at Black Hills Institute, Hill City, South Dakota."

Wildlife Update

Sometimes the wild life is my own.  I have spent way too much time with the Microsoft help folks.  Some of my problems were solved.  Every time I tried to work on my biography of Liz, MS Word would crash and give me a little note that I am working on an illlegal copy of the software.  Having purchased Windows 7 and MS Office Home and Student, I knew it was not illegal.

The crashing has been resolved and the note about the illegal software has blessedly gone away.  Along with all of that I have lost my Office Outlook email program, every contact, and all of my saved files.  I will not have a crash of my own over any of it.  Maybe staying off of email for a while will not be all that bad.  Yes, I can get my email as I access Cox Webmail with my old address.

Our babies, the little bunnies in the flower pot and the wood ducklings are all out of their nests.  Mother wood duck flew over us last night so she must have the three ducklings hidden away somewhere nearby.  All of them are out of my control and it is a bit of a relief to not have to protect the cotton tails from our frequent downpours.  Mother Wood Duck hatched out three little ducklings in the hole in our front yard tree again.

He Who Must Be Obeyed is about done with the insulation on the sauna.  We both look at all the wonderful cedar and will be glad when it is on the walls so we can get the full aroma of it.  My book nears completion.
                              Live is Good.

Mid-Town Wild Life

It is a happy event to observe a little bit of nature.  This time it is in my planter in the roots of my flowers.  I was first made aware of it when I was watering the pots along the house wall in the front yard.  My habit is to fill the pots to nearly brimming;  in the midst of holding the hose, up from the ground in the middle of the planter came four or five black little blind jumpers.  At first I thought they were rats and I was a little taken aback and horrified.

Not rats at all; they are baby bunnies so young their eyes are not open yet.

The little mother has dug a deep hole and lined it with grass.  I have never seen her near it, but she must feed them as they are growing.  I think it is clever of her to jump up into the planter to create her nursery.  It makes watering the flowers a little tricky.

A small thing, perhaps, but heart warming for this soul who longs for a walk in a pasture again.

Summer Swimmers

Summer Swimmers.

Cencus 2010

This household sent in the census letter, saving a worker to have to knock at the door and gather our information.  How many?  What ethnicity?  Simple form, quick answers.

Yesterday a wee small elderly gentleman saw our back gate open;  he parked to ask the man of the house some information on the neighbors who were never home, or at any rate, never answered his knock.  Five minutes later his small economy vehicle was parked and running in the driveway again.  This time he saw my front door open and came to ask some clarification questions of me.  House numbers were messing with his head as were skin colors and the concept of north, south, west and east.  Right and left are always so confusing.  From where you are standing or where you are looking, or just what.  West of China is more than a metaphor on our street as one of our sweet neighbors is named China.

He knocked on the door once more.  I was in my little writing nook nearby.  This time he would like our names and phone number so he could call with questions; which he did once.  This time he was trying to juggle papers, writing pads, manila envelopes in mid air with a pen in the other hand.  I asked him in, as I could easily tell that he was...all in.

The chair I motioned him into was a relief to him.  He clearly was not comfortable in breaking a rule.  He was 80, and frail, a little muddled, lived not a mile from us, had raised not only his own kids but other's kids, didn't have a retirement fund, had to work, found people uncooperative and indifferent in his quest.  If they only knew what kind of money it meant to the city to have their presence counted by the Federal Government maybe they would care. I got a dollar figure and he said it ran into the millions.

I did not ask the wee frail gentleman his name.  From my observation, I think it was American Hero.

Generations of Mothers

Do you see that pouty little child?  That is me surrounded by generations of mothers, my own, my grandmother, and her mother, my great grandmother, who out of kindness and motherliness held my little hand through this ordeal.

My own grandmother looks as annoyed by the event as I do.  Only my mother and my great grandmother seem to be pleased with our four generation accomplishment.  We are full Finns all, speak in that whispering sing-song language while breathing in or out.  There is no other sound like it.  I long to be fluent in it.

My grandmother was the eldest of her family of twelve, six brothers, six sisters.  All my heroes were cowboys and women of great strength and worthy of the admiration I have for them.

Happy Mother's Day to my own group of four generations of mothers including  four great grand babies about to welcome a fifth.  I am the oldest of this new group of mothers.

Junk in the Trunk

Our Holy Cross women's circles had a unique "garage sale" this morning.  The cars circled around in the chruch parking lot with their noses out and trunks in.  In each of the trunks was a varied assortment of garage sale items.  We must have numbered 15 or more cars.  A couple of tabled items filled in the circle.  We had a wonderful morning of visiting and eating cookies from the bake sale table.

 One fellow had a birthday and tied a helium balloon on each trunk lid.  It was one great big social with buying and selling for the benefit of the woman's circles.    I found some wonderful things I could not live without, and people sold things they couldn't live with.  When it was over, the trunk lids were shut, anything left on the tables was cleared off with whatever a person could fit into a plastic bag for a dollar.

What a sweet idea.  Nine to noon and we were done.

Yoiking

The charming and adventuresome husband of a niece is on a PhD adventure in Greenland.  Brant is in the final stages of his PhD program in Science Education at the University of Minnesota.  It is fun to join the group through the internet and see where they are, listen to one of the group give an oral update, and learn a lot.  A few days ago, I sent him a little note about the Sami custom of yoiking. Today I find a segment on the Sami on that 2008  web site

My first encounter with it was at FinnFest 2006 in Astoria.  These festivals include people that present research papers and one that a cousin and I attended was about yoiking.  It was one of those experiences that simply knock your socks off.  Additionally, this dear cousin yoiked a family gathering as a meal grace.  Her haunting yoik that welcomed our ancestors and honored the event was magnificent.  As the site states, "It is possible to yoik dead relatives, forgotten places and dramatic events, to make sure they do not disappear from the collective memory bank."

When one has the blessed gift of falling asleep holding hands with the one you  love, what is to complain about?  I think about Brant's sweet little wife, mother of three small children, letting go of her strong hand holder for so many weeks.  May God bless her for her generosity.

Happy to be Alive

I marvel at how thrilling it is to enjoy the arrival of warm weather and see the flowering bulbs and trees, even the grass looks greener in my own yard.  I am thankful that I live in a place that enjoys the seasons as they return.  My pear is blooming and if we don't get a freeze we will have pears to can again.  I am so happy to be experiencing another spring.  I told my primary care physician today that we had a wonderful winter.  We did, I worked on my book and He Who.... memorized Spanish words and worked at playing the guitar.

The three lilacs in large containers are showing purple even if the back yard rabbit had a few munches on the lower stems.  It was the never ending snow that prompted him to eat the bittersweet stems right down to the ground.  I have high hopes that they will grow back with renewed vigor.  Surely their root systems are hardy after these years.

And the pool is filling after weeks of hard long labor.  A son came to help with the concrete wall repair.  It will take a couple of days to fill it.  Life is good.

They Have Sisu

The scene on the header leads your eye down the road  to my grandparent's homestead.  The butte in the horizon is Liisa Butte, just west of the homeplace.  Early springs found my grandma, aunts and mother taking me to find the first of the crocus on the northern side of the hill.  A little later, cousins faster, bigger, much braver and  advernturesome hunted rattlesnakes on it.    Thanks for the photo!

This is truely a thin place that Marcus Borg speaks of;  those places with a particular spirituality, where God is near,  the air is full of a poignant special scent, the Meadow Larks call, and your heart nearly bursts for the love of it all.

Rattlesnake Nightmares

 I had rattlesnake nightmares for years after I moved away from  my childhood home.  The reality of the dangers that faced barefooted children as they invented ways to spend summer school vacations came to mind again when a cousin emailed a story of his experiences on my grandparents sheep ranch.

Thanks for the snake pictures. They remind me of the "snake hunts" we had at the Tuovinen place in the 1940s. We hunted the dens on Sheep Mountain and Liisa Butte in the spring when the rattlers were coming out and in the fall when they were returning to the winter dens. I regret that we didn't take more pictures but on a good day we would get anywhere from a few rattlers to close to or more than 100 of them. In more recent years I did get a couple good snake pictures. Roger always kept track of where the good dens were and let us know when the snakes were active. The snakes seemed to use the same dens year after year but I suppose we never did find all of their dens. We drove nails into sticks made from small trees, usually chokecherries, and bent the nails over to use them as rakes to rake the snakes from the den areas. A couple of us would "sling" them down the hill and a couple others would kill them with sticks as they landed after flying through the air. It was advisable to stay awake when the snakes were being thrown down the hills so as not to get tangled up with them! It is interesting that, for some reason, only a few bull snakes would den up with the rattlers.
After the rattlers left the dens they would scatter over the surrounding prairie. I recall killing up to 20 of them in a day when lambing for Rudy and Mabel Mick in the Sheep Mountain Area. The sheep would let you know if a rattler was in the area as they would split around the snake and leave plenty of room. It was interesting that some horses were very frightened of snakes and others were not. I recall that a horse of Lahti's was bit in the nose two or three times - the fang marks were quite visible. The nose swelled up to about twice the normal size and it was difficult for the horse to eat for quite a while but it did usually did survive. I was using a small white horse that had respect for the snakes and managed to evade them, sometimes very quickly! When spending all day in the saddle I used to alternate one leg and then the other around the saddle horn. There is little or no chance of staying aboard when the horse moved quickly and I ended up on the ground more than several times as a result. A State snake hunter named Jackley used traps in the den areas and caught many rattlers with his method. The snakes would push a cellophane - covered entrance aside to get in but were unable to get out.

It reminds me of when we talked Aunt Jennie Tuovinen into cooking rattlesnakes for us (Roger Kuoppala and I). We, of course, had to prepare them for cooking. They actually didn't taste bad if a person could forget what one was eating. As I recall she fried them and the meat was light colored and tasted something like chicken. Also we saved the skins and tanned them to put over belts for effect. We used to get the rattlesnakes in the spring and fall when they were denning or coming out of the dens. On good? days we would get from 50 to 100 rattlers along with a few bull snakes which apparently denned with the rattlers. I recall on one of our trips to Sheep Mountain Uncle John Tuovinen was herding sheep in the area and when a rattler started into a hole Uncle John grabbed it and pulled it out. We thought that was either very brave or simply a not very intelligent thing to do.

This is a very abbreviated summary of some of my snake hunting adventures,

Vine Deloria, Jr.

"When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply, "Ours." –Vine Deloria, Jr

Vine Deloria, Jr. (born 1933-2005) is known as a revolutionary thinker who speaks out against the decadence of U.S. culture and insists that young Native Americans receive traditional teachings before exposing themselves to the philosophies of the dominant Euro-American culture.

His Nationality is Standing Rock Sioux, American.  He was born in Martin, SD to Vine Sr. (1901-1990) who studied English and Christian theology and became an Episcopal archdeacon and missionary on the Standing Rock.

Deloria, Jr. earned a degree in general science from Iowa State University, then served with the Marines, and in 1963 earned a theology degree from the Lutheran School of Theology in Rock Island, Illinois.  He earned a law degree from the Univ. of Colorado in 1970.

Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, New York: Macmillan, 1969, remains one of the most significant non-fiction books written by a Native American. The book was noteworthy at the time for its relevance to the American Indian Movement that was in its infancy.

White Gloves

I recall with a tinge of fondness,  the hat and white glove days of my late teens.  Later, much later, I bought white gloves at every garage sale if they were out on a table.  Actually, I had quite a nice little collection of them.  On Tuesday they were nearly all put to good use and they will be again when I start digitizing my father's slides from the 50's and 60's.

We have obtained the services of a sweet friend for a few hours every other week to help us at home.  As we had cleaned so well prior to the photography session, I had Tutu clean the three chandeliers in this very small house.  Three!  Many years ago my compulsive-shopper mate found an electric company going out of business, apparently  the fixture sale was irresistible.  I was very annoyed about that to tell the truth...thinking about the old saying about the purse and the pig's ear.  He recalls moving them around and around the house after he got them wired in...just to satisfy my home decorating eye.  That stopped me from complaining,  I could see that that was no easy task, even if he was perhaps 25 years younger then.

The three of us, He Who...Tutu, and me-self, were thrilled over the cleaning results.

Wanting to do things right, I discovered on the internet the correct way to clean crystals:   

The White Glove Method.

This method does not require removing crystal.

Prepare a cleaning solution of one part isopropyl alcohol to three parts distilled water. Put it in a spray bottle.  (Oops, I used only two parts water)

Wear white cotton gloves. Spray one glove with the above solution and keep one dry. Caress the crystal with the damp glove and wipe it immediately with the dry glove. This can be fun if you love crystal!

IMPORTANT: Do not use packaged cleaning fluids under any circumstances, even if they claim to be for crystal. They may contain ammonia or other chemicals that will eventually degrade the frame finish. The crystal cleaning methods described here are the only methods Schonbek supports.

Wonders Never Cease

Our week was busy, delightful, surprising and exhausting.  It actually started on the previous Friday with a thorough house cleaning that took three days,  many cleaning clothes, and a fair amount of Windex glass cleaner.

Monday after lunch a renouned photographer and his crew of nine came in and set up lighting, arranged pleasing backgrounds, and kept "He Who is Amazing" powdered and proper.  The house and "He Who.." .will perhaps be in a brochure for a national elder assistance at home company.  They had five people to choose from.  They moved or rearranged a goodly bunch of our collected 'stuff.'  I might add they put it all back in its proper place.  It was enjoyable and exhausting for all of us.  "This will be fun," David, the photographer told us.  He was right about that.

The Amazing One's  photo is in a book called "America at Home."  He is the fourth one down under Lifestyles. This excellent photographer had two pictures in the book.  Little did we know that the image in the back porch had made the book's selection, until a couple of weeks ago, when there was a knock on the door.  We opened it to find David, with the book, and such a deal for my man.

A Beautiful Son

This morning we attended the Mass of Christian Burial for my friend's son, Father Dan.  He was the same age as our own sons, taken down with an eight year battle with cancer.  He lives on, in memories, more alive than last month, last week.  He was loved.

This Lutheran loves Liturgy.  We experienced it in its most glorious worship.  It was good to go back to the liturgy I learned as a child and young person.  The First Reading, the Responsive Psalm, the Second Reading, led by nephews. The Gospel read and the Homily given by a local Priest who went to seminary with Fr. Dan.

The chancel was filled with two Archbishops, and what looked to be a hundred Priests all in white. The Chamber Singers, who he sang with at the Seminary at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN were here to sing him home in clear lovely accapella.

The faithful men in white robes and albs lined the way to the hearse singing again in Latin; an honor guard for one of their own.

Whirling Dervish Again

How could I have gone so long without a word here?   I spend time working on my book project, going to church with the added Lenten studies and services, and hoping I don't throw a clot waiting for the Coumadin. My days and weeks have been ones of dizziness and attempted accomplishment. I pushed for a solution and was answered by a profound quote by my cardiac surgeon, "I have to think." 

We have found the Olympic coverage by NBC better than in past years.  Maybe it is just that we have more time for it at this stage in life.  Two deaths marked its days in Vancouver as well as the medalists.

Most of my time is centered on  research and writing.  It is good to have a cousin who is close in age to me with a good memory, and is a deep mine of information.  Today's phone call from him was a gift.

I find that Eve was not all to blame for the Fall of Mankind.  Adam should have come to her aid and crushed the serpent's head before he became beguiling.  But no, he just stood beside her and let it happen.  And why didn't he tempt Adam instead?  Because Eve mattered more.  I find the whole episode irritating and unjust.

St. Valentine's Day

Just as it often was when I was small, we are having a beautiful snowfall on Valentine's Day.

I never tire of the snow, nor the cold.  But I am spared the driveway and sidewalk clean up.

I feel almost pampered, not having to slide around on the ice that is so dangerous to us that are not real steady in the best of conditions.

"Put your arms around my neck," I am told as I attempt to get my feet on the ground as I exit the pick-up.  People at church must find it strange.  But then, other than the children, I am the shortest person at the 5:30 Saturday evening service.

Be My Valentine.

Snow and Paper Whites

Not only is the snow beautiful outside; but so are the Paper Whites a dear daughter-in-law gave us for Christmas.  I moved them closer to the west window hoping to keep them cool and blooming longer.

Not the best place to photograph them and I knew that.  White drapes were not much better with the white on white effect.

Five of the seven African Violets are brave bloomers. It doesn't take very much to make me happy.

We have snowfall the past two days and again last night.  It keeps the world white and beautiful and keeps He Who MBO plowing and shoveling.

February 5th Snowfall

So Softly, So Silently, So Beautiful.

Snow on Snow, Snow on Snow, In the Bleak Mid-Winter.

That Eyeglass Thing

We have all been there, trying on a newly ordered pair of eyeglasses, with the chart of deminishing lettering at the top and becoming larger as you read on down the card.  Have you ever, really read that card?  I did when I got new glasses after the cataract surgeries.

I was in for a real surprise and a new learning adventure.  It was an Epiphany for the season, we are in the fifth or sixth week of Epiphany, I think.  I actually read that card from top to bottom and I am not talking about the new glasses correction; I am talking about the words on the card...the meaning of those words.  It was an exacting rule as what size font to use in writing books with a note or two on shoulds and shouldn'ts.

The optometrist fitting my glasses copied the card for me.  As is my usual manner of routine, I cleaned out my purse and put that paper where I would need it to check against my work at hand. It is called "Standard Test Types."

Here is a little list:  These font sizes are limited to what is available here.

4 point   Small Bible
51/2 point Newspaper  Sports and Market
7 point   Newspaper   Columns
10 point  Text Books  Should be printed on dull finished paper.
11 point   Books
12 point   Books Sit with back to the light.
18 point  Children's Books ...excessive reading forbidden.

Thank You Notes

A beautiful granddaughter with her little son, our great grandson, Ethan Axel.

This photo arrived a few days ago in a thank you note.

Our New Baby!

Our Great Granddaughter, Camryn, is welcoming her new baby sister, Chloe.The birth of a new baby is a wonderful event.

Tech Help

And I thought MS Vista was problematic. www.flixxy.com/medieval-tech-support.htm

Our Own Epiphany Child

A Great-granddaughter is two today.
Being born on Epiphany is memorable.
Happy Birthday beautiful child.

The Finnish name "Loppiainen" refers to the end of the Christmas season, January 6 traditionally commemorates the wise men's arrival to pay homage to the infant Jesus. An older feast day than Christmas itself, it has been celebrated since the third century. Originally it was considered the birth date of Jesus, and later his baptismal date.  Many Finns take down their Christmas decorations after Epiphany, although some still wait until January 13, St Knut's Day (Nuutinpäivä), to take their Christmas trees out.  Perhaps I will had eKnuff of the tree by tomorrow and will take it out then.