This snow reminds me of when I was a little tike living in Juneau Alaska.

Playing outside with my sister Susan and her two friends I wandered off to play in the deep snow. Stepping in a soft spot I dropped down up to my neck in the fluffy white stuff. I couldn't move a muscle. Luckily I was close enough for Mom to hear me screaming & yelling. My mom the hero came and pulled me out brought me in the house and gave me a mug of steamy hot cocoa.

Snow Day

Today was a snow day. We got 24 inches of the fluffy white stuff. No travel advised in most of North Dakota, so I worked on putting our new office together. This room was our bedroom while we worked on the master bedroom upstairs.
Now that we have moved upstairs we can remodel the kitchen with an open dining room where the old office was.

It's all a work in progress but is starting to come together.

Christmas secrets

Sometimes it's hard to keep Christmas secrets.

I remember shopping with my parents for slippers when Dad told me to go ask Mom what size of shoes she wore.

I found Mom shopping a few isles over and questioned "What size of shoes do you wear?" Thinking I better get more information I asked "Is that the same size in slippers?"

I'm pretty sure Mom knew she was getting a pair of slippers for Christmas that year.

Winter Wonderland

We have had a wonderful wintry weekend.

Ruth and Allan Kotzea came to visit from Webster South Dakota.

Friday night we bundled up with quilts and blankets in the Blazer and drove into town to watch "The Christmas Carole" with Jim Carey.

Harvey was all decked out with Christmas lights. Very pretty!

Saturday Ruth, Dawn & I made another trip to town for lunch at a very nice restaurant "Augie's" and a bit of shopping.

Back at home in the kitchen we had tea with white chocolate liqueur. (Yum)

Ruth baked a Delicious blueberry coffee cake while I made a pot of chili and biscuits.

Dawn had bought a tray of shrimp which we served with Loganberry wine (The sweetest wine I've ever tasted)

You'll have to come join us sometime in our winter wonderland.

Skating

There has been a bit of a nip in the air lately.
The lake is frozen over so we went out to play on it this afternoon.

I put on my skates and glided around. Ice skating is my favorite sport.

I remember one Christmas we all got skates. We had a pond by the house where us kids spent hours playing.

When someone would fall down we would pull them on the sled to our pretend hospital, where they would be fixed up & ready to skate again.

I spent all winter on the ice & couldn't wait to get home from school & go skating.

once we even skated on a moonlit night.

If you get a chance, go out & do a bit of skating. You'll be glad you did.

Turn The Page Tuesday

My book for December is The Northwest Heritage Cookbook "Dungeness Crabs & Blackberry Cobblers" by Janie Hibler.

This awesome cookbook was a Christmas gift last year from my sister Paula.

I've found some great recipes in this book along with amazing stories & facts about the Pacific Northwest.

The back page has an exert from the book "Conversations with pioneer Women"

"I can't hope to explain to you how happy we all were. Father Mother and all eight children had crossed the plains in good health. We children were particularly happy, for, instead of having to strike out each morning and walk barefooted in the dust, where we stubbed our toes, stepped on cactus and watched that we didn't step on any rattlesnakes, we were in a country where the grass was belly-deep for the cattle and when the sea breeze made it wave it looked like waves of changeable green silk. We didn't have to worry about the Indians running off our stock. No longer did we have to eat bacon, beans, and camp bread, and not get as much of them as we wanted, for here we had found a country of beauty, where we could have all the vegetables we wanted, where the hills were full of deer, and the streams full of trout, where, when we looked to the westward, instead of seeing nothing but a long winding train of prairie schooners with a cloud of dust hanging over all, we saw waving grass and vividly green fir trees. We looked up at a blue sky with white clouds and to eastward we could see Mount Hood, clean and clear and beautiful and so wonderful that it almost took your breath."

Check this book out. I bet you will enjoy it as much as I do.

Here is the blanket Dawn made from towels she bought at the thrift store.

she sewed soft fluffy material on the back, so it's warm & comfy.

On a different note:

My sister Paula & I used to find an odd word in the dictionary and use it for a week.

I think rubbish will be my new word this week.

Don't you think rubbish is a funny word? It sounds so European. Much fancier then saying

garbage.

"Oh, what a bunch of rubbish."

Help me out here. Give me your idea for using the word rubbish in a sentence.

Happy Birthday Dawn

I can't believe our little baby girl is turning 15 on Wednesday. How did this happen?

It couldn't be that long ago that we brought our little bundle home to live with us.

We would carry her around pointing out things and telling her about her world.

She thought it was hilarious when we would swat flies, she would laugh hysterically.

When Dawn was three she wanted to be a cloud for Halloween. polyfill covered her sweat suit as she carried her pink parasol around town collecting candy.

When Dawn was six we had a mean little Bantam rooster. If you got to close to his flock he would come after you, a furious ball of feathers. Dawn would catch him and tote Rooster Cogburn around the farm.

Dawn has grown into a smart, beautiful high schooler.

Happy Birthday to the girl with the purple aura and the creative mind.

Sunday Stills- Fins, Feathers, and Fur

This pair of trumpeter swan's & their family came for a visit to Antelope Lake.

Trumpeter swans are the largest of North American waterfowl.

Their long necks allow them to forage for vegetation with out diving.

I feel very lucky to have seen them.

They are an endangered species.

In the 1930's there were only 300 in Canada, but are in recovery now.

Hunting Whitetail

Hunting season is in full force now in North Dakota.

Here is a picture of our first whitetail hunter with his game.

The North Dakota state record whitetail deer came off of this ranch.

We have prime deer habitat here. Plenty of feed, water and shelter.

Whitetail deer are very smart and seem to know how to avoid hunters.

Studies have shown that deer can smell human scent on underbrush for days after we leave the woods. wary bucks react very negatively when they run across our scent, often becoming leery of the area for weeks afterwards.

Bucks most often bed by laying on their right side and facing downwind, which allows them to use their eyes, ears and nose to detect danger approaching from any direction.

Deer are quick and skillful swimmers, often taking to water when frightened. Deer can easily swim across lakes or rivers at 10 miles per hour.

When running, a deer takes a long stride, with it's tracks spaced as much as 25 feet apart.

This tells me you have to be a skillful hunter to bag a big buck.

Sunday Stills-Currency

Currency

Phony as a two dollar bill.

This saying is no longer true as they made two dollar bills as legal tender for a time.

I received these two as change at a Minot's 34rth annual Christmas Art & Craft Fair Dawn & I went to yesterday.

The fair was awesome. It was held at the North Dakota State fair grounds and had so many vender's you would have to stay the full two days to see them all.

Craft Hope

Here is the quilt I made for "Craft Hope"

I had all of the material for this quilt in my stash, so it was very handy.

This is their fifth project. These quilts are going to homeless children in Michigan.

Check out Craft Hope http://crafthope.com/

If you enjoy crafting, this is a great way to get involved & help out a great cause.

Sunday Stills-Halloween

This spooky old Hotel sits down the road a few miles from our place by the rail road tracks.

The picture is quite blurry. I was parked by the tracks to get the shot when I saw the speeding train coming my way.

I had to take the picture fast and be on my way, before I became a ghostly guest at the old Hotel.

Old Hallow's Eve

Old Hallows Eve is quickly approaching.

Are you ready?

Do you have plenty of candy for all the ghouls and goblins that will come knocking at your door?

Are you prepared for any tricks that might be coming your way on this spooky night?

As you walk through the woods do you hear foot steps following behind?

Do you feel the impending doom blowing in on the cold breeze?

Listen closely. Do you hear ghostly footsteps creaking on your floor?

What is that scratching on your window's and doors?

This is the night the spirits arrive to walk the earth by our sides.

Look out, Look out, Hurry inside.

Lock the doors and close the blinds.

Decks

I'm not very good at taking before and after pictures.

The deck on our house was old and rotten. It was quite dangerous with big gaping holes you could fall through, so last Summer we tore it down and sawed it up into firewood.

Here is a picture of the old deck.

Willie is building us a new deck & I love it.

A house really should have decks on all sides, one for sun, one for shade. You can never have to many decks, or to many chairs. Don't you agree?

Mud Ball

It was so nice this weekend. In the 70's Perfect weather. My Blazer was a total mud ball so I got out a bucket of warm soapy water Sunday afternoon and gave it a bath.

It was nice and clean for one day. Tuesday morning we woke up to muddy roads. It had been raining all night.

This is what the Blazer looks like now.

End of the season

Dawn & I went to the last football game of the season last night.

Boy was it cold. I brought Penny, my little dog along as a lap warmer and sat under a quilt with one of the players Grandma's. I was wishing I would have worn my snow boots. My toes felt like Popsicles by the time the game was over.

Our team lost, but it was a good game. Both teams where tuff.

Earlier in the season we witnessed the cutest scene.

A little grey haired Grandma was waiting for the huddle to be over so she could get her picture taken with her grandson.

Over comes a big tuff football player and kneels down by his grandma for the photo shoot.

As she was walking away he called out "Love you Grandma"

Football is over for this year. Soon starts basketball. I'm glad those games are played indoors.

Duck Fest

Have you ever been to a duck fest?

Dawn, her friend Courtney & I went to a duck fest in the small town of Bowden, North Dakota.

On the way we saw a series of signs that started out with one quack and ended with quack, quack, quack.

There where duck tracks leading up to the building the art and craft fair was held in. Inside we voted on our favorite artwork, watched a hanky quilting demo and scoured the tables for crafts and yummy baked goods.

On the way home we picked up this ghoul. It is getting close to Halloween. You never know what kind of characters you might find out on the road.

Turn the Page Tuesday

This months reading challenge was Young Reader, which are some of my favorite books.

"So Far From The Bamboo Grove" by, Yoko Kawashima watkins, had been sitting on my shelf for a very long time waiting for me to read it & once I picked it up I could not put it down.

"Nineteen forty-five was a bad time for a Japanese girl to be living in northern Korea. More than ever, the Koreans resented the Japanese, who had taken over their country and ruled it as their own. Now it was threatened by World War II. The Russians, who had outposts close to the Korean border, might at any time join their allies, the United States and England, in the war against Japan. And the Americans were already bombing industrial sites in northern Korea.

Yet before the danger started, Yoko Kawashima had been happy in her home in a bamboo grove. One of her early memories is of her father bringing her a pair of canaries. Sitting before their cage, she carried on long conversation with them, which she later turned into a story for school. When her classmates laughed and told her that people couldn't talk with birds, Yoko insisted that she could and had. Even then she knew she wanted to be a writer, and of course she was pleased when her story was published in the local paper.

She couldn't know, however, that within a few short years she would be caught in the middle of a real-life story-so grim, so tragic that she would spend years of her adult life trying to get it down on paper.

Yoko Kawashima Watkins, who now lives on Cape Cod, is married to an American and is the mother of four grown children. Her struggle to master English and to record the nightmare of her private war story is a demonstration of the persistence and will she showed as a little girl, escaping from Korea and learning to survive when-as she says-she was "in the most bottom of the bottom."

When this book was accepted for publication, a writer friend told Yoko that now she would be competing with other writers. Yoko said, No, she would not compete with anyone for anything. "I competed with life and death when young," she said. "And I won."

Here is the story of her victory.

- Jean Fritz

Come on Over

You are all invited to my house for peach pie, tea, coffee and rousing conversation.

Lets get started.

I will ask a question and you answer it in a comment.

The next person will answer your question and ask one of their own.

My question is.

"What is the most incredible weather event you've ever been through in your life?"

Shorty

Shorty came to work with us today.

He is a sweet little therapy dog. he wears his own name badge attached to his sweater and walks the halls seeking out a warm lap to set on.

The residents look so happy snuggling Shorty on their laps.

One man was singing Shorty a song while petting him.

This little dog is a blessing to the people at Saint Aloisius Medical Center.

Sunday Stills- Signs of Fall

Dawn & I took a day trip up north to the town of Rugby.

On the way we past lakes full of ducks, golden wheat fields, huge haystacks, tree's just starting to turn fall colors, big red barns and harvested fields, signs of fall all around us, but what really caught my eye as we pulled into Rugby was this awesome house, notice the football jersey's hanging as a garland around the porch.

This says fall time in a small town, homecoming games, bonfires and crisp fall evenings.

Things in my yard

Fluffy

What on earth is this?

A mutated grasshopper?

Deer

Mushroom

You might want to search your yard & see what strange creatures lurk there.

New Job

I have a new job. I'm working in the hospital as a housekeeper.

Today a cute little lady came in the room while I was changing the garbage. She asked if she was supposed to do something with that, pointing to the bag.

I told her I would take care of it.

She replied "Oh good, that takes it off my back"

An aid came in and said "Beverly lets go"

As they left Beverly commented "But where will I put her" speaking of me.

At break yesterday we sat in a room with a hospital bed in it. I said " This would be a good place to take a nap"

My co-workers said "You better not take a nap in here. this is where they store the bodies. They might come and put a sheet over you."

On the way out they showed me a room that used to be an autopsy room & told a story about a lady who laid on the table and sat up as someone came in for supplies scaring her half to death.

Sunday Stills-The Color Purple

This lone purple Petunia is blooming in the debree of the demolished porch.

The flower was never planted.

It just grew up from a wayward seed that must have fallen under the porch last year.

Antelope Lake

This morning Antelope Lake is so smooth and calm. it looks like a sheet of glass. You can see every bird floating for miles.

The pelicans are out scooping up minnows. Off to the North ducks swim quacking happily.

A few evenings ago we had a strong wind blowing. The lake reminded me of an ocean with the waves crashing into shore.

Threshing Days

Threshing: separating the grain from the chaff.

It's harvesting time in North Dakota and Drake has celebrated "Threshing Days" for 41 years.

They have a parade and lots of old fashioned activities.

The parade consists of neat old tractors and threshing machines.

In front of me at the parade where these adorable little boys. I couldn't help snapping a few pictures of them.

"Listening to National Anthem"

You could watch a blacksmith forging iron

Listen to a band play country music

Watch the threshing machine work

Shop at the flea market

I visited with some of the old timers and listened to great stories. I heard how they used to ride to school in a horse drawn wagon with a little stove inside. It was quite a ride when the driver would send the horses into a gallop. The little wagon would tip from one side to the other.

Critters

Dawn found this salamander crawling in the garage. Isn't he cute!

There are allot of critters around these parts.

Penny, the little dachshund found a skunk the other day, so had to have a good soaking in peroxide and baking soda. It's the only thing I have found that neutralizes skunk odder. She still has a bit of a smell about her when she gets wet, but thinks it's quite a nice essence of skunk.

My peaceful walk by the lake turned into a yipping howling mess when Fluffy, the Collie decided to see what porcupine tasted like. She got a mouth full of quills, so the walk was cut short to pull quills out of Fluff's face. She even had some stuck right through her tongue. She never once tried to bite me through the painful ordeal. I did have to call Dawn for reinforcement to hold her still enough so I could grab the quills with my pliers and yank them out.

I hope she learned to stay away from porcupines.

Labor Day

Wow, Labor Day weekend was labor intensive this year. Aren't you supposed to take a break from work on Labor day weekend?

Certainly not around here. We did get allot accomplished though.

One of my sister in laws, Bernice and her family came over from Michigan and brought a bushel of peach's with them. peach's are my favorite fruit and a bushel is an awful lot of them. We canned & froze the juicy orbs and made a batch of peach jam, yum!!

You will have to stop over for a pie. I've got enough frozen to make a peach pie every two weeks all year long.

Next we transplanted all of the Tiger Lilly's that had been growing around the old rotten porch to new locations. There where gobs of these flowers. We kept looking around for new plots to put them in. there should be splashes of orange all around my yard next Summer.

After that the crew cut down a big old Elm tree that had met it's death and hauled it to the wood shed. We will be grateful for it's warmth when the snow starts piling up.

When the company left on Sunday, we got busy tearing down the ceiling of the house upstairs. What a dirty, itchy job that was. Now it's all ready for insulation to be sprayed between the trusses to make it cozy and warm this winter.

Fluffy say's Hi, from North Dakota.

Her and Penny are having way to much fun, chasing squirrel & digging holes in Moms lawn. They don't understand why she keeps filling them back in with rocks and dirt. It makes it hard to dig out again.

New things to sniff and woods to explore.

Mom brush's me everyday. The woods are full of cockle burrs that love to stick to my fur.

Toodles for now. I better go patrol the yard for that crazy squirrel.

Vocabulary

I need a good vocabulary lesson. It seems that every word coming out of my mouth has a different meaning.

First I went to town to pick up a few things. I asked at the farm store if they had dog wormer. The man replied "dewormer".
Oh yes, I want to get rid of the parasites, not give them to the dogs.

I did O.K. when I went to the hardware store to get a dehumidifier for the basement, so glad I didn't bring home a humidifier to put more moisture in the damp, dark space.

Drake, one of the small towns nearby is having threshing days. I called them thrashing days. I suppose they don't want to beat the crops to death.

When my sister Susan called I told her I was chucking corn, actually I was shucking corn, not throwing it around.

Boy, I think I better check at the school to see if they let parents take vocabulary class.

Sunny Days in Ketchikan

I know it rains allot in Ketchikan Alaska. It averages 137 inches a year, but my childhood memories are of pretty, sunny days.

I remember playing for hours on end in the woods. There where a great many things to find and explore in those rain forests. Moss grew on everything. Have you ever seen a muskeg plant? The leaves are humongous.
We did have to look out for muskeg holes where men have stepped in the wrong spot and sunk in the wet muck to oblivion.
Dad was out hunting once and stepped into one. His gun, carried cross ways caught on the side and saved his life, by giving him leverage to climb out of the hole.

We picked big juicy blue berries from huge bushes, yum, my favorite.

I remember the tangy scent of hardwood rising out of fish smoking huts. It takes hours to smoke salmon to perfection, but boy is it worth the wait for this mouth watering delicacy.

Sometimes the mosquitoes where thick. We would have to take bitter tasting vitamin D pills to keep the ravenous beasts off.

Grandma had a Volkswagen bug. We would ride to town with her to do errands and of coarse stop for an ice cream cone.
I have always loved to watch the boats which you could see from town.

During the Summer months in Ketchikan the sun shines bright most of the day and night. I recall Mom making us go to bed while we could hear neighborhood children still playing and having fun nearby. She would complain about people letting their kids play all night just because it was bright out.

North Dakota

We have moved to our new home in north Dakota. It's very pretty here, with huge, rolling fields of sunflowers and wheat. lots of lakes and big oak trees.

I took a walk along the lake and through the woods and spotted these pretty flowers.

I'm sure a gnome just scurried under these tree's, but I was to late with my camera to capture him.

I'm sure if I keep my eye out and camera ready I will capture one of the darling little creatures on film to show you.

Napping at Grandma & Grandpa's

My Grandparents had their 70th wedding anniversary August 1rst.
each of us told a special a memory we have of Grandma and Grandpa.

I remember when I was a little tyke and being made to take a nap at their house.
At that age you don't want to take a nap. You might miss out on something.

Grandma & Grandpa's house sat in the lush woods outside of Ketchican Alaska. The sunlight shone green in the bedroom window filtering through the trees.

I would lay on Grandma's colorfull handmade quilt and gaze out the window where I remember seeing flying squirrels glidng from tree to tree. They have skin on their legs that stretch out and turns them into rodent gliders that travel very efficeintly through the thick forest.

Bubbles

While sitting on my sister Paula's deck, in the warm sunshine, I heard children's bubbly laughter and soon saw bubbles floating up over the roof of the school which sits below her house.

I'm sure those children didn't know they were bringing joy to a restless soul.

I'm going to try harder to live a happy life and spread the joy around.

You never know who might catch it.

Through the Eyes of a Young Child

"Yesterday When I was young, so many happy songs where waiting to be sung.

I had a pretty amazing day yeserday. I spent the day with my 22 month old great nephew Noah.

Picking him up from daycare, I put his carseat in the middle and immediately had to move it. He definatly has to be sitting by the window and he wants the window opened.

We went to Woodward Tractor to pick up some parts. Noah thought it was pretty awesomw to check out the machinery.

Then acrossed the street to Mentock park where we played on the cool clides.

After playing at the park we met Noah's Mom Brittany for lunch at Dairy Queen, yum. Then on to Noah's house for a much needed nap.

After a two hour nap it was snack time. Noah had yogurt, then insisted on doing the dish's. He stands up on the back of a chair, so he can reach the sudsy water. Hopefully he will still like this job when he is a teenager.

My daughter Dawn had walked over to the Cody city park, so we slathered on sunblock and loaded up Noah's little shopping cart to take a stroll down to the park.

Along the way Noah found a rock, a pinecone and a stick to ad to the contents of his shopping cart, treasures from the road.

We watched in fascination everytime a loud motorcycle roared past.

We stopped to visit a few people at Rocky Mountain Manor. One man had a shopping cart like Noah's.

At the courthouse the sprinklers where on. What fun to run through them with glee.

After quite some time we did make it to the park to meet up with Dawn and her friend Brandy.

To see life through the eyes of a young child, amazing.

The Road North/by Iris Woolcock

I am quite the bookworm. Nothing is more relaxing then finding a quite spot, sitting and reading a book.

My birthday was July,5 th. We where in North Dakota and on the way back to Wyoming stopped at Cabela's to get a hammock for my present. The perfect place for reading, on a warm summer day.

Checking our mailbox on the return trip, I had two packages. One from my sister Paula and one from my brother Joshua. Both of them had awesome books and bags in them.

Joshua's book "The Road North" one woman's adventure driving the Alaska highway 1947-1948 by Iris Woolcock.
Iris was a freelance photographer who pulled a 33 foot trailer behind a little Jeep through the states and up the Alaska highway. It's amazing, the people she met and things she did, quite the adventure.

I had to chuckle last night as I read about an indian lady Iris mrt who had just gotten back from her trial for shooting her husband. He was a mean man, who cuffed her around and she decided that was the last time, so shot him as he came back in the house.

(quoted from the book)
"I suppose you'll be much happier now without him" I said.
"Oh yes." she said, "I don't know why I ever put up with him for thirty years."
But men are a dime a dozen up in that country.
Another women killed a man with an ax. When the judge asked her why she did it, she said he backed his truck onto her clothsline and ran her nice white sheets into the mud after a hard days wash.
She picked up the nearest thing handy which happened to be an ax and let fly with it. "Dismissed, call the next case," said the judge.

"A thousand miles from nowhere,

A thousand miles to go

How long how long

Noboby seems to know."

Norman Rosten

"The big Road"

1946

Penny Candy

A shiny silver dime I found sparkling up from the dirty floor board of the farm truck. A treasure, yes indeed.

I remember the excitement of having a dime to take to the Corner Market. There was penny candy back then. You could get ten pieces for that dime, or fifteen cents would buy you a delicious Hershey's candy bar (my favorite).

In Oregon there was a deposit on pop cans, so us kids would gather up cans along side the road and take them to the back of the grocery store where the nice people would pay us five cents a can. If you found a pop bottle you would get ten cents for it.

That was a great way to get candy money and it kept Oregons roadways nice and clean.

Bugs- Top or Bottom of Food Chain?

Sure everything seems to eat bugs, after all they are the smallest and don't the bigger and stronger animals consume the smaller and weaker, or do they?

There is a theory out that the extinction of the dinosaur was actually caused by small bugs carrying deadly diseases. The smallest of bacteria can cause devastating results.
Ticks and mosquitoes carry Yellow fever, West Nile and Malaria.

Have you watched the modern version of the movie "War of the Worlds"? The murderous space aliens were brought down by microscopic bacteria.

Watch out for those bugs.

Fight or Flight

Fight or flight, which one would you chose? I'm quite the chicken and always run away screaming from a scary situation.

My husband Willie had to go talk to a man about a construction job, so I volunteered to change the irrigation water. You always have to watch out for rattle snakes while doing this job, so on one part of the pipe I walked on the wet side where the water was coming out instead of risking the tall grass on the dry side where the snakes tend to hide. Whew, that part was done, so I could go close the lower pipes where the hay had been mown. With the water running, it's hard to hear the tell tail rattle of the snake.
Reaching down with the shovel to close a gate I herd a faint buzz and saw a rattler coil up and strike at me. I jumped back screaming at the top of my lungs.

I have seen the men chop up these snakes with shovels and know that is what I should have done, but every time I got close enough to try that method of attack it would raise up it's venomous head ready to strike. I was just to chicken and couldn't do it.

It's kind of like the classic tale "The Red Badge of Courage." If you don't kill it this time, it could kill you next time.

I've seen what a snake bite can do and it is pretty awfull.

Camping on Tollgate

The summer that I turned ten years old, our family went on an all summer camping trip. I don't remember all of the details, but Dad was working in different places that summer, so we tagged along in our little camp trailer. It was the funnest summer of my childhood.

My favorite campsite was up on the mountain between Elgin and Pendleton Oregon. A place called Tollgate.

Dad pulled our little gold and white camp trailer out of Elgin, past the lumber mill and up the mointain to Tollgate were we found the perfect campground.

A few days after setting up camp a nice lady forest ranger stopped by for a chat.
She gave us four kids big garbage bags to clean up the campground. We became proud members of the Woodsy Owl team and toured around on our bicycles picking up every scrap of garbage we could find.
I bet that was the cleanest campground in Oregon when we left it.

Most of the time we were the only campers, so we explored the woods and went anywhere we pleased.

A nice young couple did camp beside us one weekend. He played "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" on his guitar and taught my little brother Todd how to play frisbee.

We would pick blue berries in the woods and Mom would make us blue berry pancakes, Yum!

Dog House Repair Month

I can't believe July is here already. June has flown by in the blink of an eye.

Did you know July is dog house repair month? You better get out there with hammer and nails, to fix up that old dog house.

Fluffy's dog house is one of those plastic Igloo's, not to pretty, but it works well.

In August a few years ago, we moved to our new house. One of the last things we moved was the dog house and got a frightening suprise. When Dawn & I started to lift up the Igloo we herd the distinct buzz of a rattlesnake. I'm sure you could hear my scream for miles around.

Fluffy didn't tell me she had rented the basement out to a rattler.

Street Etiquette

I found a list of street etiquette printed in a news paper from the 18the century.
They where so prim & proper back in those days.

No yelling "Yo Bro" across the street.

"Ladies walking on the street are not expected to recognize gentlemen or friends on the other side of the road; to do so would necessitate habits of observation inconsistent with lady like respose."

I wonder what they would have thought about people walking down the street talking on their cell phones.

"Gentlemen will not swing their arms, nor sway their bodies in an ungainly manner when walking; ladies are never guilty of any such ungraceful action, and need no counsel in that respect."

No strutting or staggering allowed.
I thought these where quite funny. What allot has changed in the last 100 plus years.

Dirty Laundry

I've been washing our cloths at the dreaded laundromat since we moved into the camp trailer.
Twice I've gone to a dingy little place in Powell, that is right acrossed from the library, so after throwing in our dirty towels, cloths and getting the washers started I've got just enough time to run over to the library and check my email on their super fast computers. The only problem with that is, both times one of the washers quit cycling, so getting back half an hour later, I've had to wait an extra 30 minutes for the washer to run again. At least there seems to be very few people who use this laundromat.

I decided to try Cody yesterday and being summer and the tourist town it is, both laundry's where very busy, but the washers did keep going, although they cost about twice as much.
It cost 25 cents for just five minutes of drying. I kept chucking more quarters in the machines and finally gave up and brought home partially wet cloths.

At home I strung up a line acrossed the coral and hung the damp cloths on it. Sunshine and a breeze is much more efficient then tumbling around inside a dryer.

A Scary Camp Story

When I was a little girl we lived in a little pink house in Elgin Oregon. It had a huge yard with tree's, a small grass field and a big garden spot.

Our family had been planning a camping trip to Kalispell Montana when school got out. As children, we where quite excited at the prospect of catching a wild horse and bringing it home as a pet.
We practiced our roping technique's with larriett's made out of yarn on our bed post's and where quite certain we would catch a wild young pony and make it our own.

So with four excited kid's, a collie dog and a calico cat, we headed out to Big Sky country. We made our way through a corner of Washington, acrossed the panhandle of Idaho and into Montana to Kalispell, which sits between Glacier National Park and Flathead lake.

In Kalispell we stopped for a few days to visit my aunt Marveleen and uncle Dale. They even had a pony for us kids to ride.
We rode the pony double and bare back.
On one of those rides, I was behind my big sister Susan, choppily trotting allong, when I lost my balance on the slippery pony's back. With my arms wrapped tightly around Susans waist I fell off dragging her with me. Later that night while taking a much needed bath I noticed a perfect print of a pony track on my leg.

After a few days of visiting, we pulled out and found a quite little campground in the forest, in which we set up a tent. I was sure a bear would show up and have us for a late night snack.

I had a little blue Schwinn bike. My sister Paula and I spent allot of time riding our bikes around the campground, but I saw something frightening that kept us in close to the campsite.
There was a man in a dark army van that I would glimps now and then. He had long curly hair and looked like the bad man, who shot John Wayne, in the movie "The Cowboys". He might have just been an innocent camper, but when I would see that ominouse van, my heart would beat with fear and we would high tail it back to the safty of the campsite.

Drive in Theater

We went to the "American drive in" last night and watched "Land of the Lost"
There is just something magical about going to the drive in, and there are so few of them left in existence anymore.

There used to be three drive In's around this area and for awhile they where all shut down, until an enterprising local lady bought the Powell theater and renovated it. It only cost's $10 for a car load and she serves hot dogs, hamburgers & nachos from the vintage refreshment stand.

Willie and I had our first date at the Cody drive in. It was the early 80's and we saw "Flash Dance"

If you get a chance, go to a drive in. There is nothing like sitting under the stars watching a movie in the big screen, munching on popcorn and hot dogs.

You Might be a Redneck

"If going to the bathroom in the middle of the night requires boots and a flashlight, you might be a redneck."
Jeff Foxworthy hit this one right on the spot.
We rented an outhouse, since there isn't a septic to hook up to at our campsite (the barn) we do have water and electricity though and I even hooked up an antena and got the T.V. to work. It's a bit fuzzy, but we can get the local channels. Right up town, wouldn't you say.
There where several years when I was a teenager that we didn't have indoor plumbing. Mom & Dad bought 40 acres, on Cricket flat, outside of the beuatifull town of Elgin Oregon.
Dad is a great carpenter and built us a pretty log house, but it wasn't plumbed for awhile, so we had an outhouse.
Us kids wrote hillbilly grafiti all over the walls of the outhouse and yes, we kept boots and a flashlight by the front door for those spooky trips to the outhouse in the middle of the night.

More Camping Stories

Some of the camp trailers we looked at this spring where very small.
I'll never live down this story.
While driving in Powell I noticed a cute little trailer with a for sale sign on it parked in a lot, SO I stopped and took a look inside.
It was very cute, so I called up Willie and told him about it. He asked how big the trailer was and I said nineteen inches instead of nineteen feet. There was a pause and then he stated "I can barely get my big toe in that one."
The trailer we did purchase is 30 foot with a bedroom on one end and bunk beds on the other. It is set up pretty well.
Most of them we looked at Dawn would have had to slept where the table sits, folded down into a bed.
That would make a grumpy girl. "Get up, we need to use the table."
I remember as a kid camping by Hermiston Oregon. Our aunt Kathleen would tease us kids. "Get up, we need to use your sheet for a table cloth."

Dawn & I have been cleaning the house we just moved out of. We did the upstairs an have the basement left to do.
I said the basement isn't going to take so long, no kitchen, only one bathroom and no laundry room.
Dawn replied, "But the bathroom mrror is always streaky."
When I was working at the Two Dot rach we discovered that rubbing alchahol cleaned streaks off of glass, so I said, "We will clean it with alchahol." Dawn laughed and said, "so you will be drunk and won't see the streaks."
I've always been a bit clausterphobic and the first night in the camp trailer I jumped out of bed in the middle of the night and slammed into the cabinet. Hopefully I will remember not to do that again.
We had a camp trailer when I was a kid with a sleeping bunk built up above the bed on one end. Two kids could sleep there and I wanted to give it a try. I slept on the inside for awhile and woke up screaming in the middle of the night. I'm sure I scared everybody elnse haulf to death.
I always slept on the bottom with easy access to the door after that.

Stay tuned for more camping stories.

Comfy, Cozy

Our daughter Dawn makes these artsy pillows that everyone loves.

Penny has claimed this one as her own.

To make the pillows she uses scrap denim and cool fabric.

I cut off an old pair of pants to make shorts and she asked if she could have the scraps. With them she made a very hip pillow.

Dawn has bought her own sewing machine now.

I can't wait to see what new creations come out of it.