I know that this same old excuse gets old after while, but I don’t know what else to say, cause it’s true. Doing what I can to keep it all together in the house, and then —– there are just to many things to get involved with here on the computer. I can’t help it. My sweet daughter Brenda and her hubby Ivan got me my first computer several years ago and showed me where the on-off button was, and I have been hooked since then. My big problem at this time is that there are not enough hours in the day to keep up with everything.– And by everything, I mean — E-mail, Facebook, this blog, setting up and programing a new flat screen TV and blue ray DVD player plus I just got a channel going on You Tube which involves learning how to make video’s, and uploading them on there. Seems like all these new ventures that I get involved with come with a new set of problems. A good example of my shortage of time is my e-mail. I missed getting to it for a day. When I opened my mailbox, I had 269 messages in there. I know that I’m loved, and I hate to complain, but it’s hard to keep up with it all. I’m making progress, but I think that it’s time for a nap. Love ya’ll
I mentioned before that I was having trouble sending video’s. I know that there are other ways of sending them rather than doing it rather than trying to do it on e-mail, such as putting the video on U-tube and then sending the link to it. I have not tried that yet, but that got me to thinking that maybe I could put the video here on my blog and see what happens that way. So, we’ll give it a try. The subject of this video is Josie. I was messing around with the camera last week and got this one of her. She was laying on the floor halfway asleep when Royce drove up. I got her reaction when she discovered that someone was out there and then when she realized who it was.
http://www.logitech.com/videomail
Don’t look like it worked. Sorry.
Well, here it is the week after Christmas and life is starting to get back to normal??? –Sort of. (I’m not quite sure what normal means.) We had a rather quiet peaceful Christmas day here at our house. We shared Christmas dinner with Royce and Audrey. The dinner was a joint effort between the participants. It was a success, and I think that everyone got filled up and there were leftovers for all, and as usual, the time spent with our special friends, Royce and Audrey was great. I won’t say who won at the game of May I, but I’m pretty sure that it was not me.
Later on I got to start playing with the new laptop computer that Ivan and Brenda blessed me with. Ivan had already registered the computer to me, and had done all those things that need to be done with a new computer, plus he had installed a picture of himself and Brenda as my screensaver. Neat !!! Since I am new to laptop computers, and there was no manual included with it, I was not sure how everything worked. (I later found out that the manual could be downloaded from the internet. Which I did later.) I also got a wireless mouse with the computer. Since I already have wireless, and since there were directions for getting that up and running, that went well. There was no problem getting on line with it so I thought that it would be nice to transfer some of my files from my desktop to this one. I had done a transfer from my old computer which had Windows XP to my desktop which has Windows 7 so I was familiar with the process, and still have the easy transfer cable for it. I got everything ready and started it. Everything seemed to be working well when I noticed that it started to disconnect and then connect. It finally finished the transfer, but when I tried to open some of the files, they would not open. The more time I spent with it, the more it seemed not to want to cooperate. Finally the only thing I had was a blank screen with a live curser. %#^&(%##$&*## My new computer. YIKES !!!!! The next morning I called Ivan and Brenda and reported on my progress with my new computer. We tried some things that Ivan suggested. They did not do anything to solve the problem, so he suggested that I get with the technitions at HP and see what they could do. After I got connected to a nice lady named Jessica, and after spending about 2 1/2 hours on the phone with her, I have my computer back the way it should be. I printed out the manual for it off the internet, so I now have answers for many of the questions that I have, or might have later, about it such as functions of lights, touch pad, camera, etc.
Thursday evening, we had company and lots of music by the Kormann family, and Charlie Warner. In preparation for the show, I hooked up another light over the center of the front room to get better lighting for the camera. I sort of cobbled up a stand with a platform to hold the laptop so that it could cover all the activity in the whole room. I wanted to check it out on Skype that way, but that did not work out. I also wanted to see how it did with making a video, but I did not get that to work either. It’s a learning process, and for this old guy, what I do learn is absolutely amazing. I hope that I will have a better progress report later on.
I have had another project that has been going on for several weeks and that involved getting a picture of a bird. This is how the project came about. Last fall, Royce, Audrey, Lou and I had been thinking that it would be nice to set up another feeding station outside of the TV room window so that Lou could see it from her chair. Royce brought over a steel pole that is bent so that he could hang a feeder for bird seed, a corn cob, and some suet. It took a while before there was any action out there, but once they found it, the action started. We started to get visits from Chickadee’s, Nuthatches, and Woodpeckers. — Mostly Woodpeckers, and they seem to really like the suet. Around here, I think there are three sizes of them, but I just read that there are over 180 species of them. ??? I know that one of them here is the Pileated Woodpecker, and one of them has been visiting our suet. It is quite a thrill to be within three or four feet of one of them working the suet right outside the window. I have been working at trying to get a good picture of him, but it is not easy with the two stage click on my camera. Whenever I thought I had a good shot, he would not be there long enough for the camera to take the picture. Also, since I had to take the picture through the window, I could not us the flash because of the glare. Then, his visits were generally pretty brief, so there needed to be a whole lot of cooperation. The other day, I finally got a good one of him that I am sort of proud of. I am including it here on this post. – Be sure to click on the picture to enlarge it.
Another Christmas almost upon us. The hustle and bustle of the commercial part of Christmas is about over. Time for the last frantic moments of last minute shopping for our loved ones has just about run out. I know that it has for me. Hopefully, while all this has been going on, people have remembered that the real reason for the season is Jesus. I know that there are many who do all that they can to shut down any mention of Christianity and at the same time try to promote atheism and complain that they don’t get any recognition. They do all that they can to get Christ and Christmas out of our lives and vocabulary. I had an e-mail recently that told of a lawyer who was bringing suit because the athiests did not have a holiday that they could celebrate. The judge hearing the case threw it out saying there was no basis. He told them that Psalms 14-1 stated that “The fool says in his heart that there is no God”, and therefore they did have a holiday, and it was April fools day. I agree wholeheartedly.
I would like to take this time for Lou and I to wish a Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year to any of our family and friends that we may missed with cards or e-mails.
Merry Christmas from Lou and Gene
P.S. Am adding the Christmas letter that I sent out with my cards.
Christmas 2011
Greetings to all of our family and friends. It is our hope that this letter finds each of you healthy, both in body and spirit. As at other times, the year 2011 has seen a lot of challenges and tough situations. Our country and our society seem to be on a downhill slide, but– our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is still on the throne and in control. Thank you Lord !!!!
Lou and I are finishing up this year feeling very blessed in our circumstances. We have so many things to be thankful for. We have a warm comfortable home, and so many family and friends who love and care for us. We do appreciate each and every one of you and send our wishes to you for a Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.
Blessings,
Gene & Lou
P.S. I received the following poem in an e-mail recently and thought it worthwhile to pass on.
THE WORLD IS MINE
Today, upon a bus, I saw a beautiful women, and wished I were as beautiful.
When suddenly she rose to leave, I saw her hobble down the aisle.
I saw her hobble down the aisle, she had one leg and wore a crutch.
But as she passed, she passed a smile. Oh God, forgive me when I whine.
I have two legs, the world is mine.
I stopped to buy some candy. The lad who sold it had such charm.
I talked with him, he seemed so glad. If I were late, it’d do no harm.
And as I left, he said to me, “I thank you, you’ve been so kind.
It’s nice to talk with folks like you.” He said , “You see I’m blind.”
Oh God, forgive me when I whine. I have two eyes, the world is mine.
Later while walking down the street, I saw a child I knew.
He stood and watched the others play, but he did not know what to do.
I stopped a moment and then I said, ”Why don’t you join them dear?”
He looked ahead without a word. I forgot,–he couldn’t hear.
Oh God, forgive me when I whine. I have two ears, the world is mine.
With feet to take me where I’d go…..With eyes to see the sunset’s glow.
With ears to hear what I’d know. Oh God, forgive me when I whine.
I’ve been blessed indeed, the world is mine.
While I’m at it, — here is another thing to be thankful for. Our last recent snowfall brought us about 4 inches of snow. Below are a couple of shots from my front porch to show the fate of that 4 inches:
This one is wishing all my family, and friends all over a blessed and happy Thanksgiving. Here in the big town, we have a beautiful, warm, (for this time of year) day. And I have so many things to be thankful for. I am thankful for my wife, (of 61 years), family and friends for the blessings that each one of you are to my life. We have a warm, pretty place to live in that we love. And especially for a Lord and Savior (his name is Jesus) who loves, cares, blesses, (and puts up with us.) I’m thankful for this country that we live in, and all of our freedoms that we have here and all of our troops that protect those freedoms. Lou and I may be a tad challenged physically, but it’s great to be alive. HAVE A GREAT DAY EVERYONE !!!
As I write this, October, 2011 is almost over and we move on to November and whatever it brings. October, as always is one of my favorite times of the year when the weather cools off and the leaves turn and fall. It is also the month when my honey and I got married sixty one years ago. Our daughter Brenda was also born in October. Six years and two days later. Needless to say, those two events have been, and are very important in this old guy’s life.
We were blessed on this year’s anniversary with a visit from Lance Buhrman, who lived with us as a foster son way back in 1965, 66, and 67. It is always great to get together and dig up old memories and see who remembers what. We are proud of him and look forward to being able to spend more time with him whenever the opportunity arises. I have to say that he was a great help while he was here. He did some cooking, did some driving, and some helping blowing my leaf crop. Evidence below:
This October 31 is also an anniversary that I would just as soon forget. It has been exactly 20 years since we had that Holloween snowstorm up here when we got the three feet of snow. It was the evening when I wrecked my semi at the bottom of the big hill south of Minong. At that time, hwy 53 was a two lane road. Just so glad that nobody was coming up the other way. I slid for half a mile on the black ice, and wrecked at the bottom and then got hit by another truck who did the same thing. It was a dandy wreck. Two trucks and trailers totaled but neither one of us or anyone else was hurt. I said then and still do for that—-THANK YOU LORD.
Every once in a while one of those real funny ones come along that are just to good not to pass on. This is one of them. I read it on Facebook this morning, and printed it out, and I guess that it is a good thing that I did because now I can’t find it on there. I’m having to get it on here in sort of a round about way, so hopefully here it is: —— And it looks like it might be hard to read, so I will type out the content below.
WHEN GRANDMA GOES TO COURT
Lawyers should never ask a Mississippi grandma a question if they aren’t prepared for the answer.
In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grandmotherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, “Mrs. Jones, do you know me?” She responded, “Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I’ve known you since you were a boy, and frankly you’ve been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you’re a big shot when you haven’t the brains to realize you’ll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you.”
The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, “Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?”
She again replied, “Why yes, I do. I’ve known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He’s lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can’t build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.”
The defense attorney nearly died.
The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and, in a very quiet voice, said, “If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I’ll send you both to the electric chair”.
Today I have been trying to put a couple pictures on Facebook to show off my favorite bargain fern. I dug it up several years ago out of one of the local ditches along the road. I want to show my view of it on Sept. 29, 2010 and Sept. 29, 2011. I enjoy it during the summer, but I think that it is especially pretty this time of year.
My favorite fern 9-29-2010 sunny day
9-29-2011 Windy, rainy day
Same day 2011--- Looking out a little farther
Here it is the last day of September, and the fire sure is welcome. Stayed in the 50′s all day.
Well, here it is the 1st of Oct. We have about hit the peak of the color change. It is really pretty around here and the rest of the countryside. The leaves are coming off faster all the time now, and I haven’t even got my spring yard cleanup done yet. Probably be snow on it before I get to it. It’s a good thing folks don’t expect much of me. I think of it as job security for next spring,–Lord willing, that is.
Anyhow, this shot is from the NW corner of the house. It is one of the prettiest trees in our yard. I don’t think that we have to take a back seat to anywhere in the country as far as fall colors are concerned. Vermont is famous for theirs, but I don’t think that they are any brighter than ours. That’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to it.
Shot from NW corner of house
A look out west side window
Lemmington Springs
- A look out front window w/sunshine
But it has been a good one. Started out with some “sunshine”. Right away, I thought it would be great to maybe get a couple of good pictures. Some more of the neighborhood attractions in Lemington, WI. Which I did this afternoon. I tried to insert them below, but that is not the way it has turned out. As you can see, they are all mixed in. Hopefully, the captions explain.
Start of Georgia St. & view of Ortwig residence
Also got an e-mail from my son-in-law, Ivan. Good report on Harry. We requested prayer yesterday. Harry had quadruple by-pass this morning. Ivan reports:
Surgery update on Harry:”
The surgery was successful with no complications. He will be in the hospital for another three or four days. Then he will come home and recuperate. Michael says Harry will feel very uncomfortable for about a month, and then he should begin to feel better day by day.
A big “Thank You “”LORD”" for answered prayer. I said it. GB
Now, some information on the Lemmington Springs picture. This is our answer to big city parks. Many people drive right by it every day without taking advantage of what is available right there. There is water, but, I had it tested by the state when I moved up here. The report came back that it was not fit to swim in ??? I don’t understand. Locals have been drinking it for years.
This saturday is one of the premium days when folks have a chance to mingle with their neighbors. It is the one day of the week that the dump is open, and most around here take advantage of that fact. “Josie” and I had to stay home cause it was my brother Denny’s turn to make the garbage run. We take turns each week. Three customers on our route—Denny, Myself, and Kathy O next door.
I have another yearly event that happens here are the “Shanty” that not many can ignore. That is when all the acorns start falling from the big oak tree that stands at the NE corner of the house. The tree itself is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 70-80 ft. tall. (See picture below) It is high enough so that most of the acorns have enough time to gain maximum speed just before they hit the steel roof on the house, the top of the camper, or the top of my old faithful skidder. They definitely get the attention of anyone who is even remotely close. What is really spectacular is when the wind blows just right, and the show goes on full automatic. “Its Awsome”, and this year the acorn crop is really good.
Big Oak
To give an idea how much and how fast the look of this place can change, I’m putting in a couple of pictures of the same areas that I showed before. Not near as much color, and you can see much further back into the woods. I think still pretty, just different. I’m not sure that I’m ready for the next change though.
From the front porch again
A look to the North West
Here’s what a blower can do for a good crop of leaves.
This was the start of a clean up in 2003
It was Josie. This was taken shortly after she tangled with a bear. She is without a doubt, the most expensive dog that I have ever owned due to a couple of surgeries that she needed badly. With this one, as near as I can figure out, she must have jumped at the bear and got whacked with his left paw. She chipped her top right canine tooth, and got her right front leg opened to the bone from above her knee to her foot. It took a lot of needle work to sew her up and put that drain in. She had to wear the collar for quite a while to keep her from chewing on it. See the picture below
The picture did not come out very good cause I took it through the front window, but the turkeys were out there stirring the leaves up. There were another five or six behind the woodpile.
Working on their breakfast
Here it is, the l7th of October. These flowers don’t know when to give up. I think that they will be white before long. Don’t know what kind they are, but if anybody knows, let me know.
The signs showing the population for Couderay has been at 92 for so many years that I got used to it. Seems we have had a jump in our residents lately and I didn’t notice. My appologies if I have offended anyone. Please see the proof in the picture below. It really does say 96.
.
It’s been raining most of the day, but I must be over my cold. I’m out of pills.
It seems that Ilene Cobb has moved to Texas and has no further use for her woodpile. It was decided that it would be a great addition to the pile that I have already. I definitly had no objections, so thanks to the efforts of everyone involved, it happened yesterday. A “BIG THANK YOU” to Ilene Cobb, Rachael Warner, Royce Zesiger, and Nate and Emily Kormann. We have been “Blessed”.
Time to check in
It’s been a while. Feels like I have been awful busy lately, but I guess that the reason that I feel that way is that it takes so much longer to get anything done now that I have become a seasoned citizen.
Guess I’ll back up for a couple of weeks and try to remember what has been going on.. There was a while when I didn’t feel real perky. Got over that and got a bit of ambition. Had plans to blow some of my leaf crop around to get started on some clean up. Had to move my pick-up out of the way, and in the process of doing that I ran over an extension cord. I managed to do that right at a spot where I had spliced it. I found out shortly that I didn’t have any power to my blower. The reason was that I had created a dead short there and blew the fuses in my garage. O.K., when I went to the electrical supply store to get more, they didn’t have what I needed so they had to order them. This created opportunities to drive in to Hayward. I must have needed the practice. While all this was going on, it gave me the opportunity to move some of my woodpile a little closer to the house. Just in case we should get hit with some rough weather before spring gets here. “RIGHT’
Had more practice driving last week. Kathy Ortwig, Lou and I drove down to Marshfield to see Lou’s Parkinson’s Dr. and have the power level of her battery checked. The deep brain stimulator works similar to a heart pacemaker. Turns out that it is not in real good shape, and needs to be replaced. This got the wheels in motion to get that done as soon as possible. She would need to have a pre-op done to see that she is in good enough shape for the surgery. Got that done the other day in Rice Lake at the new clinic by Dr. Pebler. Everything is cleared there. The surgery has to be done in Marshfield. There are two doctors involved with that. One to do the surgery, and the other to turn the battery on and set the voltage. Getting two doctors schedules worked out so that they can both be in the same place at the same time can be a little challenging. That is done now so the date to have it done is set for the 20th of this month. (As a note about the expected life of these batteries.) Dr. Pebler told us that it is normally between 4 and 5 years. When he checked, he found out that it has been 10 years almost to the day since Lou had the stimulator put in. “GOD IS SO GOOD”.
Wednesday of this week was a busy day here at the house. Plans had been made for the carpet to get shampooed. Royce and Audrey Zesiger were here to help (Do) that project. That took up the bigger part of that day, but it sure helped the looks of the carpet.
Wednesday was also a sad day for Kathy Ortwig. She learned that one of her Great Nephew’s had been killed in a racing accident. All that she could tell me at the time was that his first name was Cale. Wasn’t even sure how he spelled his last name. Didn’t give me much to go on to start an internet search to get any information. A little later she got the right spelling and I happened to hit on a racing site out there in Maryland that was involved and knew about it. The fellow that has that site was a real help as far as getting me all the resources that had information on what had happened and what was going on. Consequently, I was able to get that information and print it out for Kathy. Glad that I was able to help. Prayers for her and the family would be appreciated.
And—–during the time that all these things have been going on, as usual, many of our friends have been stopping by to see that Lou and I are in need of anything. Sometimes, prepared meals somehow wind up in our refrigerator. They don’t stay in there very long before they are on the stove. What a group of friends !!! I won’t mention any names, but some of their initials are: Royce and Audrey Zesiger, Dan and Shirley Owens, Rachel Warner, Rachael Green, Bernice Seffinga, Fran Zesiger, and Steve and Ann Kormann. This collection of initials are just some of the recent ones. There are many more that will be here in a moment if I let them know that I have a need that I need help with. We may have health problems, but we are “STILL BLESSED”
I was in the back this morning when Lou yelled to bring the camera. Being the obedient husband that I am, I was there in a flash—camera in hand. At first I thought that Rachael Green’s black squirrel “Oscar” was out in the yard tresspassing, but it turned out to be the turkeys again. I got a count of 26 this time. Don’t know if they have a death wish, or they just don’t have a clue that there is a holiday coming up where they could be the guest of honor. Psssst We have not been to the store yet to buy one of those domesticated ones yet.
They don't suspect a thing !!!!!
It finally got here. The day that Lou was to have her battery changed. Started out with us getting up way before breakfast. We were to wake Katie up by calling over there when we got up. We called and called without any results. After almost half an hour of that, Lou called Bernice to check on her. She was O.K. but her phone had been giving her problems. We got headed out on the road a little after 6:00 A.M. so that we could be at Marshfield by 10:00. We got down there with time to spare. After getting all the preliminaries done, the next appointment was for 1:00 P.M. in Ambulatory Surgery. We got there and were informed that they were running about an hour late at that time. Shortly after 2:00, they took Lou in and got her ready for her surgery. Her Dr. Called me about 3:00 and informed me that all had gone well, and the nurses would come and get me when she woke up, which they did. We then went through all the instructions of how and what she was to do the rest of that day and later on. Redressing the incision, how to shower, how to keep it dry, when to call the doctor to report on how it was doing. Appointment that had been set up for post op. and get the staples out, etc.
It was after dark by the time that we got back on the road and headed for home. I was to call Brenda and let her know what was going on. I did not have access to a phone while we were getting checked out and getting Lou comfortable in the car, but I figured that would be no problem. I was going to stop up in Spencer at the Kwik Trip and call from there. I did, and guess what—–they have one public phone there, and it was out of order. No great problem, I could stop at the truck stop in Caddott and call from there. I did, and guess what,—–there was not a phone in sight there. After I had walked and looked around there for bit, my breathing was starting to get tough, so I thought to heck with this, I’ll just call when I get home.
On we go. Everything was going fine till we were headed out of Ladysmith when those familiar blue and red lights showed up in my rear view mirror. I was pretty sure that I had not been speeding, but I pulled over as soon as I found a good spot. I rolled the window down to greet the policeman who showed up there. It was a Wisconsin State Patrolman who informed me that there were three senior citizens who had been reported missing, and we were them. After he checked out my drivers license and a short explanation from us, he informed us that he had called ahead and reported that we should be home in a half hour or so.
It’s usually the older folks that are concerned about where their kids are. This time it was the other way around. Lets just say that there were quite a few phone and radio transmissions going on for a while. We senior citizens will do most anything to get attention.
Seriously, we appreciate all the care, prayers, and concern from all of our friends and loved ones.
Please continue to pray for Lou’s recovery and that things will get better for her. Thank you.
November 26, 2008
Time sure seems to slip away when you are having fun.—-or not. Anyhow, I guess that the last post was about our trip to Marshfield on Thursday. It is now the next Tuesday, and Lou has not shown any interest in working around the woodpile yet. Seriously, she has some healing to do, but the incision seems to be doing all right. Her next appointment down there was for the 4th of Dec. to have the staples removed. We didn’t see much sense in going all the way down there for that when we have doctors in Rice Lake, so after a little phone tag, we got that changed and will save a few miles of travel.
Saturday was the big day when rifle season for deer opened. I was sitting there in my easy chair taking my nebulizer when I looked out and watched two of those critters easing through my yard. As far as I know, they are still going. It’s hard to do any shooting when my rifle was out in the garage at the time.
We got a dissappointing phone call this morning. Brenda called from the airport in Hartford, CT this morning to tell us that she was not going to make it. There was some sort of a problem with the plane. After boarding and sitting there for about two hours, they decided that they had a computer problem with the plane and would have to have it repaired before they could go. The next flight that she could get out on would be about five this afternoon. Not a good situation, so she called Ivan on her cell phone and had him come back and get her. Guess it was fun retrieving her luggage too.
We are dissappointed, but we thank God that the problem was discovered on the ground rather than in flight where who knows what could have happened.
Thanksgiving Day may be over, but there is much to be thankful for every other day of the year too. There are so many things that we take for granted. Just think about trying to do without one or two of our blessings for a day, and see what your life would be like. That’s my thought and I’m sticking to it.
The day did not go exactly like it had been planned in the first place, but it was a good day anyhow. There were invitations to share Thanksgiving with some of our friends which were just not possible for us to accept. My plans to do dinner for ourselves and Katie O. were vetoed, and the dinner was delivered from the Seffinga residence next door — with enough for leftovers. Thank you Bernice. It was great.
Good news arrived the other day in the mail. I mentioned earlier in this blog that my story might get published one of these days. Well, It just might happen one of these days soon. The paperwork to get the project started has been signed and sent back to publisher as of today. I will advise of any progress whenever I learn anything more.
Since it was my and Josie’s turn to make the garbage run this week-end, we got-er done on Saturday. Josie was probably more excited about it than I was, cause those trips in the back of the truck don’t come around often enough to suit her.
I was sitting on the coffee table putting wood in the stove when I noticed that something looked different out on the porch. It looked like the wood fairy had been there and put some nice ironwood out there. I got Royce to fess-up.
We had a visit again from that rascally black squirrel “Elvis” of Rachael’s. I guess that he has been putting out the word that we have a great crop of acorns laying on the ground over here. He brought a friend with him this time. Check out photo.
Where did it go? Now I can’t remember what all has transpired. I do know that we went to Rice Lake to have the doctor check and see how well Lou’s surgery has healed. It is healing well, and the doctor says that there is no danger of her leaking there. No more doctor appointments needed for that.
Got some more good news this week. Had more communication with the publishing company regarding my story. I found out what all I have to do to get it ready for them to really start working with it. I found out that they don’t work with the hard copies like what I already sent them. In order for them to work with it, they have to have an electronic version. Got all the guidelines of what they need. There is a certain way that any pictures that I want in there have to be handled, etc. Also have some information projects that I have to get together for them. All I have to do now is to find the time, (and the knowledge) to get it all done in a reasonable amount of time. All prayers are appreciated.
Well, here I am again. It’s been a while and I won’t even try the excuses for not updating for a while. I’ll just tell the truth. I mentioned the last time about getting things moving with processing my story. After I sent the paperwork in to the publishing company, I got word back from them on what I needed to do to make it workable for them. I had sent in the hard copy of it with all the pictures in it. Turns out that they don’t work with the hard copies, and it has to be in electronic format. They have a limit of 15 pictures, so I had to eliminate some of them. There were some hard choices. The electronic version had to be in Rich Text Format. Had to learn something new there. The pictures had to be scanned a certain way and size. That was a problem because my scanner was not working, plus I”m not real sure about how to give them the desired results. I sent those pictures to our daughter Brenda in Connecticut. She scanned them the proper way, and sent the files back to me. I sent one of the files to the Publishing Co. to see if they were what they needed. They were, but all this working across the country is sort of a round about way, and takes time.
This weekend was my turn to make the garbage run. Was getting ready to do that. Josie was all ready to go for her ride in the back of the truck when my brother Denny showed up and said he had to go down town anyhow so he thought he might as well take the garbage too. So much for Josie’s ride. OK, on to plan B. I thought I would take the opportunity to burn some trash that had been collecting in my garage. I had a dandy fire going in the stove and had got to the point where I could see some bare spots on the floor when Josie left me to go and greet a car that had driven in. She was back shortly leading Brenda who had surprised us by driving up here. I knew that she had been in Chicago on business for her company for several days, but it was a most welcome surprise. She had planned to spend Saturday night with us and then drive back to Chicago on Sunday afternoon. Didn’t happen. Saturday night we go smacked with four or five inches of wet slippery snow. Since none of us wanted to see her leave in that stuff. She made a few arrangements so she could stay over another night with us and then leave on Monday.
Beside having a nice visit with her mother and I, she got drafted into tweaking my computer a little to make it work better and answering some of my questions. I have lots of them. See the proof below.
Brenda hard at work
Here it is January 9, 2009 and I’m just now getting started with my update from Christmas and New Years Holidays. I’m ashamed of myself.—-Sure I am.!!!! I don’t think that I made a new years resolution to do better, but I really will try.
The holidays were good. Before Christmas we had a group of carolers from the church singing in our living room. (I counted 17) It is always good to hear folks praising the Lord with song. Even Josie our German Shepherd found a way to join in. I had slipped the leather end of a leash under the leg of a chair in the back room and hooked her up there as I frequently do and never had a problem. This night, she showed up in the living room with her leash but no chair. She enjoyed mingling with the group.
We had Christmas dinner with Royce and Audrey Zesiger. Audrey blessed us by cooking the dinner and bringing it here to our house. Friends like that are hard to come by, and the dinner was great.
We recieved a big box of goodies and surprises from our loved ones in Connecticut. We recieved many cards and letters from our family and circle of friends. It is so good to hear from the ones that we don’t get to see for long periods of time and hear how things are going in their lives.
Before Christmas, I was busy doing some things that the book publishing company needed from me, and all that I managed was to get my own Christmas letter out. (Belated at that)
New Years Eve at our house was not like what the world thinks folks should do on New Years Eve. Lou and I both missed it. I think that she was in the bed about 10:00, and I was doing something on the computer. (Neither one of us had a headache the next day though.)
Other than that, winter has come to Wisconsin. We have had two or three respectable snows so far that have given us an accumulation of somewhere between a foot and a foot and a half on the ground at this time. Temperatures have been hanging below the freezing point with the exception of one week-end where it thawed a little. Proof below:
Not my favorite numbers
The weather forcast for next week promises to beat that considerably. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I did get some good news today about my book. I had sent in all of what the publishing company needed on the 23rd of Dec., and just heard back from them today as follows:
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To: Gene Burgan
Subject: Re: Burgan: It’s In the Bank: 21 attachments downloaded & opened successfully
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Mr Burgan,
I apologize for the lateness in my reply, thank you for your patience.
I have downloaded all of your attachments and everything opened just fine. Thank you for submitting your electronic version of your manuscript. Keep in mind that we have asked you for a FINAL draft, that is, your manuscript should only need minor grammar adjustments at this point. Once your book enters the Text Production Department, we will not accept any large scale changes to your book. If you don’t feel that you have submitted a truly FINAL draft, please let us know right away. I have sent your file on to text productions. They will contact you when they assign an editor/proofer to your manuscript.
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In the mean time, I plan on stuffing a lot of wood into the stove.
Till next time, Gene
I’m not sure how it got started, but three of my recent posts were not showing up at the top whenever anyone went to this blog. I got a heads-up recently that people were assuming that I had not added anything new when the first date that they saw was Dec. 1. Actually, there were three additions after that, and I’m pretty sure that more than one person may have missed them for that reason.———–That kind of jolted me into taking some action to find out why that had happened. I e-mailed WordPress Support and got the answer to my problem and have now corrected it. Sorry for all the confusion.
There really is nothing spectacular in the way of news other than it is still winter up here in the north woods. It has snowed a couple of times since my last post, but has not really amounted to anything. (Any chances of thawing have not amounted to anything either.) It’s still cold, so the wood fire still looks and feels good. Check out the white background as we look out the front window.
There is hope though !!!! The days are getting longer, and it should start to warm up by April,—-and there is still wood left in the pile.
It’s still cold up here in our neighborhood, but even though I go through the motions of complaining about it, I don’t really have to go out in it unless I want to, which is a blessing. Some folks have to go to work every day while I can sit here and watch the fire in the stove and put wood in it every once in a while. I do have a lot of empathy for the ones that have to be out in it. “Been there, done that.”
Have a good report for this week. Had an e-mail from the publishing company that my story had been sent on to the text department and I could download the proofs of what they had. I did that and went through the whole thing looking for any errors that I might have made or any changes that I wanted. Found some, and put in what I wanted fixed. Got the file back today, and guess what—-I managed to forget one of them. Looks like not much has changed with me. I sent that one on to them, so hopefully all the repairs should be in. Once that is completed, it goes to the cover design department. No definite schedule for that to be done, but I will advise of any progress.
It's hopped up !!
The warm weather that is. Today is the last day of January, and it was just balmy here today. I saw some water dripping from our roof. It has been a long time since I have seen that happen, and it was a sight for sore eyes. I’ve to put a picture on here that I took today. I suppose that there will be some doubters out there, but it’s amazing what you can do with a thermometer if it is placed where you can get the most out of it when the sun shines on it. (Which is also the reason that the quality is not the greatest because of the glare.) Actually, the temperature got up close to 40 degrees today. The real thing is not far away.
I’m talking about two things. I’m talking about spring and my autobiography. Since my last post, we have had some more cold weather, but not nearly as cold as some we had earlier. The last two days have been great. It stayed up close to 40 degrees even at night. All of the snow slid off the roof, the snow on the driveway is slushy, my rocks are beginning to show, my picnic table has only a little snow on it, and it’s a little wet and icy, but I can put up with that. The snow is going at the base of the trees which is a sign that the sap will be running in the hard maples, and it won’t be long before folks will be tapping them and starting to make syrup. It’s early yet, but anything can happen. I can remember one time when I was logging in the early 80′s and we had a warm February. It was the 15th of the month, and I worked without a shirt on all that afternoon.
Things seem to be moving right along with my story. I got an e-mail last week that the printing part of the book was done with just a plain cover, and if I was interested, I could order however many I wanted, so I ordered one just to see what it looks like. This could take two or three weeks. This morning, I got another e-mail with an attachment that had what the cover department had produced for my cover. I have a couple of days to either approve of what they have come up with, or I can make some suggestions. I like what they have, but I want to think about it a bit. More as we progress.
Yesterday, Dave V. asked me in the comments section where he might get my book after it is published. Since it was a question that others might have also, I will answer it as best I can. Right now, I don’t know for sure. According to the publishing companies literature, it should be available through most of the major book stores here or abroad. I’m not much up on how that works, but the book has an ISBN #1-60813-666-3 which they can reference along with the book title (IT”S IN THE BANK)and order it for customers that way. I’m sure that I could also get copies myself. We’ll all have to wait and see when it is released, so till then, that’s all I can tell you.
It’s time for an update on what’s going on at the “Shanty”. Actually, not a whole lot, except that there is probably the hint of a case of cabin fever starting around here. It’s not that we can’t get out at all, but with the icy conditions in our driveway, and many other places, it’s questionable about whether it’s worth our taking the chance of being out and about. I never thought that I would see the day, but we are finding out that a lot of things change.
Anyhow, the weather is moderating. The days are getting longer. We still have a good supply of wood. Royce is keeping my porch supplied with wood so that I can get it easier. Water dripping from the eaves almost every day. (Have had a couple of light snows recently.) Spring is coming, or at least it is supposed to be the next season in line.
I got an e-mail this morning from the publishing company. I mentioned a couple of posts back that they had sent me a copy of what they had for my cover. I liked it, but I didn’t feel that it represented what the countryside looks like up around Side Lake. First glance at that one made me think of out west somewhere, or down south in the moutains. Anyhow, I sent them a picture of the lake in front of our house, and they took it from there. It is supposed to be finalized now, so am sending a picture of what the cover looks like now. I don’t have a release date for the book yet, but they say that it could be somewhere between four and six months from the date that I signed the contract. May be looking at April or May, but if I hear anything, I’ll keep you posted.
I didn’t like the picture of the cover the way I got it on here yesterday either. Guess that I wasn’t thinking to good. I couldn’t get it rotated either before I inserted it here, so tonight I’ll do it a different way. Dave solved the problem for himself by turning his laptop, but it wouldn’t be the best solution for a desktop monitor. Sure don’t want anyone having a wreck, or getting a crick in their necks trying to see it so I scanned the front by itself, and then the back by itself. Maybe this will be better.
Front cover
Back cover
Since it has been a while since I have done any posting here, I’ll try to play catch-up. A week ago, we got 7 or 8 inches of snow. Royce and Audrey showed up that morning and did some shoveling, which was a blessing. That afternoon, I managed to get over to Katie O’s and get the truck and plow us out. Takes me longer to get over there than it takes to do the plowing. So far, no more of it and it is starting a slow melt. —-Now on to my story for those who are interested.
SOME HISTORY
As I said before, I will try to keep everyone informed about my story. I guess that what I will do is to start from the beginning and let everyone know how it came about in the first place. I have sort of kept a running account of how and what has happened up to this point in time, and will pass that on now. This could get to be a little long, but I don’t know how else to do it. Please bear with me, and I welcome everyone’s comments.
BOOK PUBLISHING SEQUENCE
Just so that everyone gets off to the right idea of how and why this project got started. I had been told by several of my friends that I should get something written down about my life as a record of it according to me. Because of the fact that so many do not leave anything but memories with their immediate family and friends. It is somehow not the same as getting it right from the horse’s mouth. (So to speak) There are so many things that I wish now I had would have asked my own Grandfather when I had a chance. I suppose that this is what finally motivated me to get something started.
I don’t remember exactly when it was, but sometime after I was in the recuperative stage after a rather serious medical problem back in 2004, I found myself with more quiet time on my hands than I really wanted. This condition, and the aforementioned motivation finally gave me the perfect opportunity to get started on writing my autobiography. I could not tell you for sure how long it took to get things organized and get started putting things in some semblance of order. In retrospect, it was probably somewhere between two or three years to come up with a finished version of my story. (At least up to this point) Doing something like that sounds like it should be easy, but it is not easy to remember so many details. Seems like when you get going on one subject, it leads off to another two or three, and then this process just keeps going on and on. When I had what I considered something that made some sense, I made some copies and provided them to some of my friends and family. Since there seemed to be some interest, I did consider seeing about having it made into a book or booklet, but then I didn’t feel like the cost of doing that would be worth the expense. That idea sort of went by the wayside. I had not written my autobiography with the idea that I would make any profit from it.
The next thing that I had been hearing about were the blogs that people were getting involved in. It sounded like it would be a fun way to keep in contact with those who were interested in the lives of Gene and Lou Burgan. Somehow, in the process of doing a little research into them on the computer, I happened to hit on a link to Publish America. It said something about a publisher that never charged their authors. That sounded interesting to me, so I sent an inquiry letter to them about my story. This is the story of how we have arrived at the present situation. Following is the sequence of what has happened since I sent the inquiry letter to Publish America.
1. Some time a little before 9-23-08, I sent a query letter to Publish America regarding my story.
2. On 9-23-08 I received an e-mail from Loretta inviting me to send my complete manuscript to them.
3. On 9-29-08 I received an e-mail stating that they had received my manuscript and I should hear from their acquisitions team within a couple of weeks.
4. On 10-01-08 Received e-mail and sample contract from Michael, acquisitions editor.
5. Approximately 11-25 received two contracts in regular mail. (Dated 11-20-09 from them)
6. On11-28 I sent one copy of signed contract back to them.
7. On 12-02-08 Sent in author questionnaire
8. On 12-04-08 Received e-mail from Geannette in Pre-production with instructions on how to scan pictures.
9. On 12-12-08 Received another e-mail from Geannette with more instructions about scanning pictures.
10. Another e-mail from Geannette about maps.
11. More about maps.
12. On 12-15-08 Correspondence with Jeannette about extending deadline to get all of my material in.
13. On 1-09-09 Received e-mail that Pre Production had received picture files.
14. On 1-27-09 Received e-mail from Adam with proofs of my manuscript.
15. On 1-27-09 Received another e-mail from Adam.
16. On 1-28-09 Received another e-mail re: final review of proofs.
17. On 1-29-09 Regarding a missed correction on changes. OK’d after that.
18. On 2-06-09 I ordered one copy of “Galley” (Printed book w/plain cover)
19. On 2-09-09 Sent e-mail to Adam questioning problem accessing PA’s webb site.
20. Got reply from PA/Support Thank you. Someone should get back/24 hrs. if not do againl
21. On 2-11-09 Received e-mail with file of cover design.
22. On 2-12-09 I sent my comment and suggestion on design.
23. 2-16-09 Sent an e-mail to PA Support asking again for password for site.
2-18-09 No word on password.
2-23-09 Got revised cover design today. Should be O.K. Still no word on password.
2-26-09 Received my Galley copy of my book via snail mail today. Got e-mail from Jessi at PA Support today saying that she had sent my request to proper dept. ????
On 3-1-09 I recieved the following e-mail from the Author Support Team;
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Date: 03/01/09 18:27:17
Subject: PublishAmerica and CNN, NBC, Fox News, New York Times
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PublishAmerica Author Support Team
My answer to that one is as follows:
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From: Gene Burgan
Date: 3/2/2009 11:02:52 PM
Subject: Re: PublishAmerica and CNN, NBC, Fox News, New York Times
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Hello,
I appreciate the e-mail with the information. Right now, I am not sure why it was sent to me at this time. The last I heard, my book, (IT’S IN THE BANK) was ready to go to print, but have not heard that it really had, so I am not sure how far into the process it really is. I have checked your link at: www.publishamerica.com/Press/index.htm., and don’t see any reference to it there. Has a release date been set for it?
Also, I am aware that Publish America says that they expect their authors to do whatever they can to make their families and friends and local areas aware of their books. I totally agree with that, and am doing what I can, but I have a problem with the site that Publish America provides for it’s authors. I still can’t get into it because I don’t have the password or what I should be using for a user name. I first e-mailed your department about the problem on 2-9-09, but as of this date, have not recieved an answer to my problem.
As long as I’m looking for information, could anyone tell me what the suggested retail price for my book will be? I would like to know so that when I get ready to order books for myself, I will know how much they are going to cost.
Thank you,
Gene Burgan
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ON 3-5-09, I RECIEVED THIS ANSWER FROM PA:
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Dear Gene Burgan:
Thank you for your email. We have forwarded your website concern to our Tech Support Department (techsupport@publishamerica.com). They will be in touch shortly.
Your book was sent to print on February 23, 2009, and is available to order through us. Your official release date is April 20. The list price of your book is $16.95. All discounts will be taken from that price. The process of releasing a title can be a little confusing. Please allow me to break down the process to make it clearer.
Once the Cover Design has been finalized, we send your book’s marketing information to RR Bowker’s Books In Print, Ingram, Baker & Taylor, The Brodart Company, Barnes & Noble.com, Borders.com and through our printer in the United Kingdom to wholesalers in all main markets in Europe where our books are made available to more than 200 million European readers. We also list your book on our website.
While your book’s listing on our website goes “live” immediately, the various retailers we submit information to may take longer to list all of your book’s information. Typically, the last items they list on their sites are a book’s cover image and description.
The Official Release Date we have provided you is the date by which your book’s information should be complete at all outlets and thus, fully orderable.
Have a good day,
PublishAmerica Support
support@publishameria.com
ON 2-5-09 I RECIEVED ANOTHER E-MAIL AS FOLLOWS:
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Here it is Friday again. The weather looked more like spring, even though it isn’t yet. It was up in the 40′s, cloudy, but—water starting to run. Snow piles starting to go down. There’s hope.
The UPS man made a stop here with a package. He delivered the first two copies of my book. (My compimentary copies from PA). I can add a little more information today also. The book is listed on Publish America’s web site. If anyone is interested in looking at it, it is at: Publish America.com under their online bookstore on page 15.
Just a couple of days can really make a difference in a lot of things. For instance, snow melt, water running, my attitude, (and lots of other folks). It was cold again last week, and I hope that was the last of that. Saturday, it started to melt. I could actually see water starting to run in the drive. You can see it on the left side of the picture below.
It was a little warmer on Sunday, and better yet on Monday. Those two days have made a big difference in the amount of snow. This next picture of the drive was taken this afternoon.
Signs of spring are closer. March 16, 2009
This next picture really gets me excited. Water running down the hill going into the culvert under the driveway.
And if that is not enough good news, the UPS man stopped here this afternoon again. I’ll fill everyone in on that tomorrow.
Yesterday we had snow in the air most of the day and night. I got up this morning, and looked out the front window and saw that familiar white look. The good thing about it was that there was only about 1/2 an inch, and it only took a couple of hours for it to melt off. See the pictures. That is my idea of how all snows should be handled. Absolutely no physical effort involved.
Morning view
The new snow is all gone
Recieved three different reports about UPS making book deliveries today from Amazon. Taking from one to three days. Depending on where you live. As I mentioned before though, I have some copies of the book here and more ordered. May not be as speedy delivery as Amazon, but definitely cheaper, and I can send it to you in a plain brown wrapper if you want so no one will know just what it is that you are getting. If anyone is interested, give me a call, or e-mail me, and we can get something figured out. gmburgan@indianheadtel.net
- Looking up the hill
Looking down the hill --- eastbound and gone
Well, here it is the very last day of March—finally. The weather this week has left a little to be desired for us here. We have had a little sunshine, but for the most part, it has been dropping some light snow and some rain on us. Nothing serious, and not near as bad as what has been going on over by Fargo and along the Red River over there. Gives us good reason not to whine because we are in much better shape, and besides, the bible tells us that we are to give thanks in all things. Probably a case of spring fever.
Anyhow, I have spent some time at the computer creating. I have been thinking for some time that I should have a card or some way of letting folks know what is going on in our lives here even if they don’t all have access to a computer. The information would be available anyhow this way if anyone is interested. So,—–I have been playing with my Print Shop designing a card. So far, I have come up with about four different versions, and the picture below is what I have settled on so far. I welcome any comments or suggestions. Good, bad, or otherwise. Please don’t be to hard on me.
Front & back of card
Yesterday was election day, and Lou and I went and did our civic duty. After that was taken care of, it was time for a nap. I had hardly got settled down in my recliner good when I heard a chainsaw running. I kept hearing it in the back of my mind and started wondering what in the world was Lucas cutting. It then crossed my mind that Lucas was at work so I had better get up and see what was going on.
When I looked out, I saw a familiar red pick-up parked out at the end of the driveway and that familiar guy who drives around in it. It was Royce out there in my yard cutting up the tree that the wind had taken down a while back. What a nice surprise. I had been wondering when I would have enough time and energy to get at that project myself. If I had ever gotten to it, it would have probably taken me at least two days to get done what he did in about an hour. It’s hard to say enough good about neighbors like that. Here, he’s getting close to the end of the project.
Nothing to it
I just looked to see when I posted here last. I can hardly believe it, but almost three weeks have gone by since the last time. Guess that when you are having so much fun, you don’t pay enough attention. (That plus problems.)
Brenda and Ivan blessed us with their presence at Easter time for four days, and it was great. Hated to see them have to go back home. Highlights of their visit were: Easter dinner w/Brenda as cook, Katie O sharing dinner. A shopping trip to Hayward at Walmart. A trip to Rice Lake to check out the Chinese Restarant at their new location. Better than ever !! Another trip to Hayward for plumbing supplies. Kitchen sink needed a little help as it picked that time to clog up bad enough that it didn’t want to drain hardly at all. With a lot of help from Joe the plumber, (Ivan), it got fixed. A few games of “May I”. I think I let all the others win. Brenda and Lou did a great job redoing pictures on the refrigerator and some others. Brenda checked to see if things were under control at work.
I was going to put a couple of pictures on this blog, but something has happened to my picture transferring process, and things are not working like they are supposed to. I can transfer them to the computer from the camera, but they don’t go where I can get them back out to upload to this blog. I am trying to get this issue resolved as soon as possible. I guess that you will know when that happens. This is just so anyone who is interested will know that I”m still around and trying.
These computers are wonderful things–when they work right. After four or five times and much frustration, of unloading the same pictures, I think that they are in the right place where I can upload a couple of them to this blog. I’m still not sure that I did anything different or smart on my part, but they went where they were supposed to go, and that is into my Pictures file. Before that, they were going into my HP Images file, and I could not access them there.
Anyhow, I wanted to add these following pictures to my last post. When Brenda and Ivan were here over Easter, I got her back at my computer when she was checking to see if everything was going smoothly at her work. Isn’t it wonderful to be able to keep close contact with the job and not have to be anywhere close to it? It wasn’t that long ago that such a thing was not even dreamed of. I also got pictures of one of Brenda’s projects while she was here. Seems like between Lou and her they do a job on the picture gallery on the front (and side) of the refrigerator. It’s a constant project to add new pictures, take some down, and re-arrange them. Lou gets to give directions, and Brenda gets to do the work.
Ivan told me a while back about a friend of his that had used up all the available space on his refrigerator door so he went out and found a junk refrigerator, took the door off, and mounted it on his wall. Looks like I may have to do something like that myself.
Brenda checking work -- long distance
Two pictures of the refrigerator door
There is no way that I can keep the rows straight, so I just leave them on their own. I’m talking about my “vegetable garden”. I’m specializing in raising onions. They are the wild kind. They call them “leeks”, and I have a bumper crop this year. I’m going to run a sale on them next week, so if anyone is interested in getting some of them, I’m willing to deal. I’m adding a picture below of some of them.
Also, I am seeing some of the Trilliums starting to bloom. I’ll give them another week or so and then take a picture of the hill on the west side of the house.
Like I said the last time I posted, I would give the trilliums another week or so and then take some pictures. Well, I think that they have about hit their peak now, so here are some pictures of some of the patches around here.
These are on the east side
If you will notice in that shot of the hillside, that tree in the background was standing till the other night when the wind got it. It will fit into my woodpile before long.
Well, here I am again. Late as usual. Getting to be a habit, but——-I’ve been busy. Now, when you are old and busy, it just takes much longer. I’ll try to give a rundown on all that has transpired since the last time that I posted.
I had been having a problem with the car making strange noises. I determined that it was the brakes that needed to be redone. I took the fronts apart, and as suspected, they were bad. I had the rotors turned and put in new pads. That helped some with the noise problem, but I still had noise that I didn’t like so I checked the rears. They were in worse shape than the fronts had been. So —- this time the rotors were bad enough that I just got new ones. Doing the rears turned out to be a much more complicated process. Those great engineers managed to build the parking brakes into the calipers in them, and I had a thing or two to learn there, plus the fact that everything was rusted badly on them.
Over Memorial Day, my niece Linda and her husband Larry came over from Minnesota and visited. They brought their big power blower and weed eater and spent time and a lot of labor helping to blow some of the leaves in the yard back into the woods. I only got one picture of Linda working , and that one was not real good because it was cloudy when I took that one. See below:
Linda's in there working ----look close
There have been some other things happening around here like some folks coming over and bringing things like flowers, pies, and casserols. I won’t mention any names, but some of their initials are Dan and Shirley, Royce and Audrey, Bernice and Rachael W. Not sure that we did anything to deserve this sort of treatment, but we sure appreciate it.
In the last week, I have missed out on a couple of good pictures because the camera was not in the right place at the right time. One morning, I looked up and there was a doe standing in the middle of the driveway. By the time I got the camera she was over by the back side of the woodpile. I took the picture, but all that you can see is her standing on the right side to the right of that tree. Had one standing just outside the house this morning, but by the time I got the camera she was headed out too.
- The deer is in the shadows by the tree by the woodpile
Here it is almost a month since my last post. I have been meaning to get myself going and get an update on here, but have not made it yet,—-and am not going to do much tonight but let every one know that I have good intentions. Maybe tomorrow will be more productive. I had better because my senior moments make it sort of hard to remember what happened yesterday,—let alone what all that has happened over the last month.
We will see tomorrow what happens here at the “Shanty”.
GB
Have two of these-----but can't remember the name
-
The whole garden
- My whole garden is on the porch rail
Since I am so far behind on my reporting on the last month of doings at the shanty, I might as well start with this. This is what sort of things that us seasoned citizens get involved with. I never was much of a farmer or florist, but I find myself involved again this year, and it is starting to get exciting. Between Audrey & Royce, Dan & Shirley, and Katie O, they have provided me with my whole crop. There is a lot of responsibility making the rounds each day and getting the watering and weeding done, but someone has to do it. All together, I believe that there are seven plants. Six flowers and one pepper plant. See the pictures.
Looks like a geranium to me
??? It's a flower
-
This one's jalapeno
- Jalapeno pepper
The Ortwig’s moved up here to Lemington is 1979. The Burgan’s came up here in 1980.
Now it came about that the Ortwig’s (specifically Fred) liked to have his lawn looking nice, and he worked hard at it. Each week, or whenever it needed it, he would get on his riding mower and mow it. Now it just happened that there was a problem with this mowing job. There was this rock sticking up just enough in the middle of his yard so that the blade on the mower would hit the rock every time that he went over that area. I could not tell you how many times that this happened to him, but when it did, I didn’t have to wonder what that loud noise was.
Fred finally got tired of this rock that was doing awful things to the blade on his mower, so he decided to do something about it. He proceeded to start digging. Now, just because there is a bit of rock sticking up above ground, you can’t tell how much of it there is below the ground. Well——he dug and he dug, and the next few days he dug and he dug. He had a pretty good sized hole in the ground before he got the whole story. O.K., now that he had it all in plain sight, his next problem was getting it out of there. His big source of power and his pride and joy, was his Ford tractor. Let me tell you that this project was a challenge. I did not see how he finally got it out of the ground, but he did. He managed to drag it over to Georgia St. and part way up the hill. He did get it just up past where my driveway starts and he abandoned it right there in the middle of Georgia St.
At this time, I was logging, and just happened to come home with the old truck that I was using to stack logs on my landing. This truck had a Prentice G loader on it, and I had brought it home so that I could do some welding on it or something. When I saw that rock sitting right there in the middle of the road, I had to go up there and pick it up and put on the truck. I have never forgiven myself for letting the opportunity of a lifetime slip through my fingers. I was temped to take it back over there and set it by Fred’s back door, but I chickened out and put it in my driveway. See the picture.
The big one -- opportunity lost
This was another of Fred’s rocks that was giving him trouble mowing. This one was down in front way down by the snowmobile trail out close to the road. It too, was sticking up enough so that he had a problem hitting it with the mower blade. He asked me if I would go over there some time when I had the skidder going and see if I could do something with it. I told him O.K.
Another mower alarm
Well,—- this one posed a little problem too. I started to dig around this one with the blade on the skidder. It is not real easy with a straight blade, but I worked on it for a while till I had most of it exposed. Fred and Bob Clark were down there with me at the time, and had Fred’s tractor there too. I finally got the blade under one edge of it, and kept bumping it but it would not move. After several attempts, Bob said “I think it moved.” From there, I tried to get it tipped up, but it wanted to slide till Bob butted up against it with the bucket of the tractor. We finally got it tipped up on its edge and I chained it to the blade. I could not pick it up with the blade, so I just started pushing it. Fred told me to take it out in the brush and dump it, but I said “No, I”m going to take this one home.” As I was pushing it, it went up on a little hump and raised it up on it’s location on the skidder blade. I rechained it there. Although the skidder would not pick it up, it held it off the ground the rest of the trip home with it. So there is now a sturdy seat out there by the picnic table for anyone that wants to sit on it.
I’m adding another picture here of a later time when Josie and I were sitting on it. She really loves me.
At least I’m not picking on Fred with this one, but it has a story associated with it also. I’m refering to the one in the center of the picture below.
The one in the center
The one that is is the center is the one that I first put there at the west end of the culvert that runs under my driveway. I put it there to keep folks from running into the ditch out there. I figured that it was big enough to see.
Well,–one fine afternoon, Dick and Shirley H stopped by for a visit. After a while, Dick walked over to the Ortwig’s to see Fred for a while. Shirley stayed at our house till it was time to go over there in the car and pick up Dick when they were ready to go. Shirley got in her car and proceeded to back down the driveway in reverse out to Georgia St. I’m assuming that she was going to turn onto Georgia St., but she never made it that far. She had enough momentum when she nailed that rock that the car wound up perched on top of it right in the center of the gas tank. Both rear wheels were off the ground, and there she sat. I went out there with a chain and my pickup and pulled her off. I installed those other two rocks shortly after that, and as far as I know, nobody else has bothered them.
There is another rock tale if you click the “Older Entries below”
- It just fell down ??????
This is what I got to look at the other morning when I got up. I used to take a little pride in the projects that I worked at. I guess that some of that goes away as we get more advanced in our senior years.
That part of the woodpile has been there for three or four years, and I piled it myself so I have nobody else to blame for the failure. What can I say? I guess that all it took was for a little breeze to come along, and there she went.
There must be a lesson here somewhere. I’m reminded of the passage in the bible where we are told not to value things on earth where “moth and rust” destroy. Guess that it must apply to my woodpile too. “Oh well”.
I caught him red handed !! He was out there on the window sill right in the middle of the day. I don’t know how long he stayed, but he was in no hurry to leave.
In this post, I will try to explain the way that the game of motorcycle polo was played. As far as I know, nobody gets involved in something like this any more. There may be, but I have not heard of any of this kind of activity for years. I played in a few games back in the late 40′s and early 50′s. Following is my rendition of how it was played:
THE GAME OF MOTORCYCLE POLO
Just so that you have an idea of what and how the game was played, and what the motorcycles that the guys rode to play the game were like. First of all, the motorcycles were their road bikes that they rode every day. Many of them were used for the road, for endurance runs, hill climbs, and racing, and being pretty was not very high on the list of priorities. In fact, when Bill Walker, one of the guys bought a brand new 1948 Harley 74, (The price tag was about $850.00.) the first thing that he did to it was take the tanks and fenders off of it and put on some tanks and fenders that he had on a machine that he had raced for two years. They weren’t beat up enough, so he took a hammer to them so that he had one of the worst looking machines around. Whenever a stranger came around and thought that they could beat that old beat up looking machine, they were in for a big surprise, and lost a little money in the process. That generated many stories.
I will explain the game of polo as I remember it. For polo, most of the bikes were stripped down about as much as could be. No front fenders, a stub fender on the rear, no floorboards, a solo seat, and most of the guys had a straight pipe on so there was plenty of noise.
The game was played on a field the size of a football field. There were two teams with five members on each team. The goals on each end of the field were like football except there were no crossbars. Each team had a goalie stationed parallel to their goal on his motorcycle. The other four members of each team were lined up at the end of the field facing their opponents goal. One of the teams was designated as the kickoff team after a coin toss. When that was determined, the ball, which was the size of a soccer ball was set on the ground in the center of the field. When the referee, (who was on foot), waved to start the game, one man from the kickoff team went down the field on his motorcycle and kicked the ball. No one from either team could move until the kickoff man touched the ball, but as soon as he did, there were eight motorcycles heading for that ball, and the mayhem started. The men could not touch the ball with their hands. They could kick it, use their elbows, knees, head, anything but their hands. Most of the time, the bikes never got out of first gear. Whenever someone kicked the ball through the posts for a goal, that was a score for that team, and then it started all over again with the other team getting to kick off.
It sounds like it could get a little dangerous, and I suppose it was, but the worst injury that I heard of happening at one of these games was one of the guys broke a collarbone. Other than that, there were a lot of scrapes and bruises. It could get to be a busy scene if the ball got jammed up between four or five bikes with everyone trying to kick it out of there. At times like this, CD Ulicki, the Harley dealer from Waukegan liked to maneuver his bike up alongside of one of the other team’s players and reach over with his foot and tap that fellows clutch pedal in to get things moving. (Those bikes all had a rocker foot clutch). The guys that were not picking their bikes up off of the ground would be after the ball down the field again. After playing two halves of that game, most all of the guys had enough for the day, but they had plenty to talk about for a few days.
Many of these games were spur of the moment deals if a bunch of riders happened to be hanging around the shop and didn’t have much to do. Other times, games would be scheduled with other clubs such as Kenosha, WI, and Cedarburg, Wi. I remember playing up in Black River Falls.
Hey, a good time was had by all !!!
YOU HAD TO HAVE BEEN THERE
This is a picture that I have in my mind that makes me chuckle whenever I think of it and how it came about. Back in those days, Harley Davidson had two different size motorcycles, or I should say two different size frames. The large one would either have a 74 cubic inch engine, or a 61 cubic inch engine in it and weighed in around 700 pounds. The smaller machine had a 45 cubic inch engine, and weighed about 500 pounds. At the time, I had a 45 and a 61. I did most of my horsing around on the 45. One of the things that I liked to do once in a while with that was to get off on the left side, have it in first gear, rev it up, dump the clutch and spin it round and round me while I was just holding the handlebars. Some of the other guys would do that with their 45′s also. I had never seen anyone do that with the big machines, ——so, one afternoon when some of the gang were together out in a field, Willie Walker, (The aforementioned rider with the beat up looking machine.) decided that he would try it with his 74. He got started, and made about a half circle when the machine straightened up and took off across the field.. When the machine straightened up, the throttle rolled wide open with Bill hanging on for all he was worth. With all that power heading across the field, he was laid out on the machine on his stomach, and holding that wild thing with just his two hands on the handlebars. He finally pulled himself up far enough so that he could shut the throttle off and save himself from who knows what. Not sure if he ever got up enough nerve to try that again.
Dave asked if I had any pictures of the bikes that we rode in those days. I have this one on our refrigerator, so I scanned it to put it on here. CD Ulicki, the Harley dealer from Waukegan is on the left on his 74. Probably a 1946 or 7. Me in the middle on my 1945, 45, and Cal Ower on the right on his 45. (His was a surplus army bike.) Looks like he had his headlight and front fender on. CD had headlight and no front fender. Me, no front fender or headlight. It took me about 5 minutes to switch muffler for a straight pipe in those days. 
I’m talking about the yearly acorn drop. You can refer back to the archive for Oct. 2008. My post on Oct. 5———-And I have another story relating back to the motorcycle days. Similiar doings nowadays would get a much more active reaction from the police department.
YOU DID NOT HAVE TO BE A RIDER TO BE PART OF THE GANG
Ed Luby, one of the fellows that was a regular spectator at most of our events was the proud owner of a jeep. Now Ed was not exactly shy about doing something a little risky. He was another one who liked lots of noise with his wheels. He had taken the muffler off of the jeep, and had put on a piece of flex pipe and run it as a straight pipe. The time was the late 1940′s, and the police had not done a whole lot as far as enforcing any noise ordinances, so we felt free to run the straight pipes. Needless to say, nobody had any problem hearing him when he was in the area. One afternoon, he was at one of our polo games. During the game, one of the casualties of the game was a broken straight pipe from one of the motorcycles. I don’t remember whose it was, but the pipe was what was known as a shark fin. It’s end was formed like a shark fin, and was extremely loud on the big Harley’s. Some time while everyone was mourning over the fate of such a nice straight pipe, someone walked over to Ed’s jeep and did a little checking. Sure enough, that broken shark fin was a perfect fit inside of Ed’s flex pipe. If that shark fin made a lot of noise on a Harley, give it at least a plus two on the jeep.
Now that Ed had acquired this improvement to his jeep, it was definitely more fun riding with him. The noise that it made was most impressive when he would be riding along at about 40 or 45 miles an hour and downshift into second gear. That got everyone’s attention. Especially when he would come into Zion about midnight and do that by the Zion Hotel. ((AKA Bedbug Ranch, see picture below)), (At one time one of the largest wooden buildings in the country.) With our creative minds, we figured that the least it was doing was to try to suck all of the windows out of the building.
Zion Hotel ( AKA Bedbug Ranch)
It seems like It has been another one of those busy weeks. Have been meaning to get this post updated before I forget what all has happened. Now I’m afraid that the forgetting is taking over, but I’ll try.
Last Saturday morning Royce and Audrey came over and had coffee with us. Audrey brought some goodies, and Royce brought his chain saw. After the coffee, Royce went out and cut up some of the dead and downed trees out there. My sister Phyllis arrived in her camper for a visit. It was my brother Dennis’s turn to run the garbage, so he was here for a bit.
My neice Linda and husband Larry arrived from Minnesota on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend with us. We had a great time, and even though it was a long weekend, it was way to short to suit me. Hated to see them have to go home this afternoon.
Lou and I are trying to talk Phyllis into staying for a while. Brenda and my grandson (Burgan) are scheduled to arrive from Connecticut and Virginia on Friday, the 11th. Great to have family around.
We have been blessed with company this week, but only Brenda and “Burg” are left here with us as of today, Saturday. Niece Linda, and husband Larry left on Monday. We talked sister Phyllis into staying around till today so that she could spend a little time with Brenda and my grandson before she headed back to Arizona. She left home with only a month’s worth of pills, and the pile is getting smaller. Everyone enjoyed the time together.
“Burg” got to get out on a hunting expedition around the yard today and bagged one of those pesky chipmunks as it was getting ready to attack. Proof below:
In this last week, there has been a big change in the looks of the trees. There is a lot more color showing along the roads as we drive along, and a few of the leaves are starting to fall. The flowers on my porch rail look a whole lot better than they did earlier, and my pepper crop is ready to be picked. I suspect that the frost will start to do a job shortly.
Flowers hiding behind flowers
Dianthus
Jalapeno Pepper
Well, here it is Wednesday night. Brenda and my grandson “Burg” left this morning headed back for their homes in CT, and VA respectively. Their presence is expected at work later this week. Sure is quiet around the “Shanty”again. We did get a project done yesterday though.
I mentioned before, that Royce was over here last week with his chain saw and cut up some dead and down trees. Monday, “Burg” and I drove my old wood truck out there and picked up all the cut up stuff. Yesterday, Dan Owens brought the wood splitter over here from Katie O’s and “Burg” learned how to run it. He split up the load that was on the truck, and piled it. I forgot to take any pictures of him doing that. Best I can do now is to give you a picture of the pile of wood that we got out of that load and post it. Also forgot to ask him if he was sore this morning before he left, but he seemed to be all right.
Not bad for a skinny kid (my grandson) and a wood splitter
Brenda called at 10:00 P.M. to let us know that she had landed safely in Hartford and will call again when she gets home. And at 11:35 she called again to report that she was home safe and sound. An answered prayer !!
I just looked, and I find that it has been a whole week since I have done any posting on here. Now I have that old problem of trying to remember what I have been doing for the last week.
I spent a little time trying to get a few things straight in my garage. Since Katie’s wood splitter is still over here, I used it to make a bunch of kindling with it. I found out that my heavy duty jumper cables were so rusted up and corroded at the clamps that hardly any juice could get through them, so redid them so they work. Need them to start up the skidder in case it should snow one of these days. (Talked to brother Jim this week, and he tells me that they got 3 or 4 inches in Wyoming where he is.) Mornings are getting cooler here now. I started a fire this morning—-felt good.
Lou and I took Katie and Bernice to Rice Lake for a belated birthday celebration for Katie. Got some burgers and fries at Hardies and then went down by the lake and ate there. Was a beautiful day. Don’t take much to please us old folks.
My friend Arvis Holland stopped over for a visit this afternoon. After we solved all of the world’s problems, we did a little pickin’ on the guitars. It is amazing how good I sound when he is around to cover up all my mistakes.
That is about all that I can think of right now, so I’ll drop in another story of one of my adventures when I was in the army. To refresh your memory, I was with a 90 mm anti-aircraft unit. I guess that this is a good time to show what one of the 90′s looked like in action so you have an idea of what they looked like and the size of the shells that they fired. I’m the second from left with my back to the camera. I belonged to the machine gun section, but I was helping that day.
ONE MEMORABLE CONVOY
Although our primary assignment was to guard Chicago, we did a lot of moving around. While I was there, we were back and forth between Camp McCoy and Chicago five different times. We also moved for firing sessions to Big Bay, Michigan over Lake Superior, and to Sheboygan, Wisconsin over Lake Michigan. Since we had live ammunition for all of our guns, we moved that with us every time that we moved. Since I was one of the truck drivers, I was involved in quite a few convoys carrying explosives, and this story has to do with one of them.
The army had issued new trucks to us. (I believe in 1952). These were the new 2 1/2′s that had the single wheels (rather than duels). They also had automatic transmissions. They were fine trucks, but they had a couple of drawbacks that we soon found out about. They were not good on slippery roads. (An outfit from Texas was driving theirs back and got in a snowstorm and wrecked several of them. When the driver let off on the gas in slippery areas, the automatic transmissions would drop into low gear and the back wheels would just lock up like he had hit the brakes.)
There was another innovation with them that we thought was great. They had a switch that would lock the parking brake. When you wanted the parking brake on, all you had to do was to step on the brake and turn the switch on and the brake would stay locked. When you turned the switch off, the brakes were then free.
O.K., Now I think this was our first trip with these new trucks running explosives. When you run explosives on the highway, the trucks must have explosive signs on each vehicle. One on the front, the rear, and on each side. Besides our trucks, we also had the ammunition loaded in 3/4 ton trailers. I would like to point out that this was way before interstate highways, so our route down to Chicago was on Highway 12, a two lane, with many curves. With a long line of explosive signs, there was not a lot of passing going on, and the ones that were brave enough to start going through the convoy probably had second thoughts before they made it all the way through. Our speed limit on these trips was generally about 35 mph so it was a boring ride, and these folks provided us with many opportunities for a little fun. About every hour, the convoy would pull over to the side of the road and stop for a 10 minute break. It was just after one of these breaks that we were just getting going back on the highway that one of the trucks slowed down for some reason. The truck behind him stepped on his brakes, and —-they locked up. He apparently had turned the switch on when we stopped for a break and not set his emergency brake at that time, so now when he braked, they really worked. Since nobody expected a complete stop like that, the truck behind him hit his trailer and broke it open and spilled 90 mm ammunition all over Highway 12. This incident stopped our convoy and closed the road until a munitions team could get to us from Camp McCoy and clean up the mess.
Almost another week gone by, and we are making progress. I mentioned last time that I had started a fire and it felt good. It still feels good, and it has been going pretty much of the time since I started it that time. It has been on the cool side with some rain mixed in with it. There are still a lot of leaves on the trees, but there area also a lot of them on the ground. Still lots of color, but probably won’t last long now. Just heard some weather person mentioning something about possible wet snow flakes. And to think, I used to think that was good news. My,— how priorities change, but life goes on anyhow.
Tonight, I will give you another one of my acomplishments from my army days.
A LITTLE EXCITEMENT ON A RAINY AFTERNOON
(50 CALIBER STYLE )
Now, this one happened to me one day at our camp in Chicago. I’ll give you a little background on how this one came about. I have been around guns and ammunition all of my life. I have always been curious about different kinds of ammunition and their purposes or uses.
I guess that my brothers and I first started experimenting with 22 shells. Sometimes we could buy 22 long rifles that had hollow points. They expanded much faster when we hit a woodchuck or some other game, and did more damage than regular bullets. When we could not get any of those, we would take a knife and cut a cross in the tip of the regular bullets, and they worked much the same as the hollow points. We also pulled bullets from the 22′s from time to time. We would pour the gunpowder out and set fire to it. A source of more powder would be when we took shotgun shells apart. They had a much better supply of powder. We learned the difference between gun powder and the powder that was in the primers. I’m just telling you this to say that I have always had an interest in ammunition. I’m not advocating these types of activities for teenagers now-a-days, but these were some of the things that we “played” with when I was a kid.
Since our machine gun section had twenty five 50 cal. machine guns, we had lots of ammunition around,and since we were an anti- aircraft unit, all of our ammunition belts were loaded with a tracer bullet every fifth one. I knew what these looked like when we fired on remote planes over Lake Michigan. The tracer bullets gave you a visual picture of just where you were shooting in relation to the target. Anyhow, I was curious to see what one of these tracers looked like up close, so I pulled one of them and had tried to light it several times over a period of a couple of weeks with no success. The tracer composition inside of the bullet is hard like cement. I had tried laying a couple of the heads off of (farmer matches) on top of the tracer composition, using a lighter, etc. Nothing worked, and I had been carrying it around in my pocket during this time.
On this particular afternoon, it was cool and rainy. Most everyone was in a tent somewhere staying out of the rain. I happened to be in the communications tent with the guys in there. This seemed to be an opportunity to get serious with this project, so I asked one of the guys if I could borrow his pliers for a bit. He had no idea what I had in mind, and handed them over to me. I had been thinking and thinking about a better way to get that thing started. I got a good grip on the bullet with the pliers, got my knife out of my pocket, and started digging into the tracer composition till I had a few loose chips laying on top of the main part of the core. Next, I went back to the old match head trick. I laid a couple of them on there and proceeded to light them. I had spent all that time trying to get some results,—- well, now I had SOME RESULTS !!!!! When that baby fired up, the thrust twisted the bullet in the pliers that I was holding in my left hand till the flame was coming back almost parallel with my arm. I had no choice but to hold the pliers as tight as I could to keep it from twisting more. The flame was shooting out about four or five feet, and the bullet had become white hot. I was trying not to get myself burned, burning someone else, or burning the tent down. I’m not sure how long those things last, but it seemed at the time that it would never stop. It probably takes somewhere around 60 seconds, but whatever it was, I sure got my moneys worth in that short time. I had seen what I wanted to see, and had no desire to see it up close again, thank you very much.
It has been raining all last night and all day today. Been cool and hanging in the 50′s, so the fire is a beautiful thing. I mentioned before that when my grandson was here that he had run a pickup load of wood through the splitter. After he left, I found another tree up in the woods that Royce had cut up. I got that picked up myself, and ran that through the splitter. I’m here to tell you that the process is nothing like it used to be.
I remember one of the big oaks that went down after lots of rain and some high winds. This one was down by the road. The ground was so watersoaked that the wind just blew it over. I brought it home and cut it up and split it myself. (Some proof below.) This one was Red Oak. Some heavy, heavy stuff.
An easier way to get them up there on the splitter
In that last post, I said that wood that I had up there on the splitter was Red Oak. I blew the picture up bigger, and I see that it is Hard Maple instead. Sorry, but I figure that I had better correct that before someone gets all over me. — Especially since I spent a few years in the woods logging.
It’s been a while since I posted again, so it’s time to catch up again. Lou and I celebrated (more like witnessed) our 59′th anniversary on the 7th of this month. The celebration consisted of a trip to Hayward. A visit to Walmart’s for a few things, a stop at DQ for a sandwich and a blizzard. Then over to the boat landing to eat and
look at the water. It was a nice day, but nobody out there.
There was another notable happening. Our daughter Brenda had a birthday on the 9th. She is our pride and joy.
Looks like the weather has decided to cool off and be nasty for a while. We got our first taste of snow already. In fact, a couple of tastes. Neither one of them anything serious. It is all melted, but it was beautiful on the colored leaves. Got a picture of that.
I think summer's definitely gone
One other thing that this weather has brought about is some of the deer herd has decided that picking acorns around the yard is good. Have had three of them out there twice this week. It’s a good bet that they will be nowhere around next month when season opens.
I couldn’t get them to pose for their picture.
First off, we started the day off this morning with the power going off for one hour and forty minutes. Could have been big problems, but I have lots of oxygen in the bottles. Had some coffee left over from yesterday so after I poured it in the cups I just had to put it on the wood stove in the living room to heat it. —– Problems solved, so on with the day.
I have been posting some of my experiences on here lately. Tonight, I have a poem that I would like to pass on. I have no idea who wrote it, and I came upon it rather by accident. Not long ago,my friend Dan Reimer asked me if I could go back and see if I could resend a certain e-mail to him. I didn’t remember it, but I looked anyhow. I have so many e-mails going through here that I was not sure. Anyhow, he later told me that he did not get it from me, and that it was from his father-in-law. He then sent me a copy of this poem. I too, think that it is great, and wanted to pass it on.
BEST POEM IN THE WORLD
| I was shocked, confused, bewildered As I entered Heaven’s door, Not by the beauty of it all, Nor the lights or its decor. But it was the folks in Heaven Who made me sputter and gasp– The thieves, the liars, the sinners, The alcoholics and the trash. There stood the kid from seventh grade Who swiped my lunch money twice. Next to him was my old neighbor Who never said anything nice. Herb, who I always thought Was rotting away in hell, Was sitting pretty on cloud nine, Looking incredibly well. I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal? I would love to hear Your take. How’d all these sinners get up here? God must’ve made a mistake. ‘And why’s everyone so quiet, So somber – give me a clue.’ ‘Hush, child,’ He said, ‘they’re all in shock. No one thought they’d be seeing you.’JUDGE NOT!! |
We may live up here in the brush, but you just never know what the next conversation will be about. We just recently had a local bear that made the national news scene when he went shopping at the liquor department in Marketplace Foods in Hayward.
After that, it was mostly uneventful during the week. Weather mild most of the time with rain of and on. We had high winds this morning that helped to prune the dead stuff out in the woods. Got one of my basswoods, and a lot of others in the area. Knocked our power out for a while this morning also. Then this afternoon, we had a bank robbery in Exeland. Don’t have much at this time in the way of details except that one of the robbers was apprehended and there was a lot of police activity down in the Deer Lake area looking for the other actor or actors. Like I said, I don’t have much information at this time. When I know more, I will post it here
As far as I know tonight, one of them is still on the loose, but it sounds like his identity is known along with his description. Here is what the paper had this morning.
All-points bulletin issued for armed robbery suspect
Dairyland State Bank robbed Friday; one suspect killed
News Editor
The Sawyer County Sheriff’s Department today is looking for a suspect who is wanted in connection the armed robbery of the Dairyland State Bank in Exeland on Friday.
Wanted is Robert H. McCallie, male white, age 21, 6 feet 5 inches tall, weighing 200 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair. He is listed as armed and dangerous. McCallie may be driving a green over green, 2001 Ford pickup with Wisconsin license plate ET9636.This truck is listed as stolen from Rusk County.
Arrested Friday in connnection with the bank robbey was Steven Ray Willard Jr., 19, of Phillips, Wis. A probable cause hearing for Willard is slated this afternoon in Sawyer County Court.
The Rusk County Sheriff’s Department reported that their sheriff’s deputies, the Wisconsin State Patrol and Wisconsin DNR responded to the area where the bank robbery suspect vehicle was reported to be traveling Friday afternoon and eventually located it. When officers atetmpted to stop it, a pursuit took place. During the pursuit, the driver of the suspect vehicle reportedly fired shots at the officers in pursuit. After a pursuit of about 10 miles, the vehicle ultimately stopped after being involved in a collision with two Rusk County sheriff’s patrol cars. At the crash scene, shots were fired and the suspect (not named at this time) weas killed. One deputy sustained minor injuries.
(Friday’s story follows)
A suspect in the robbery of the Dairyland State Bank in Exeland Friday afternoon was reportedly pursued, shot and killed by officers west of Bruce in Rusk County, while another suspect was arrested in Sawyer County and a third suspect remained at large Friday night following a manhunt in the vicinity of Deer Lake eight miles west of Exeland.
Sawyer County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Kurt Barthel said that at 2:29 p.m., the sheriff’s dispatch center received a report of a holdup alarm at the Dairyland State Bank at the corner of Highway 48 and Grant Avenue. The suspects were described as white males, wearing hooded sweatshirts. One of them displayed a handgun.
The sheriff’s department requested mutual aid from the Rusk, Washburn and Barron County sheriff’s departments, as well as K-9 units from the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Department and Rice Lake Police Department.
Exeland Fire Chief David Veness told the Record that he and his wife were in Exeland running an errand when he spotted two individuals wearing “spook” masks behind the Dairyland State Bank. A few minutes later, he heard radio traffic that the bank had been robbed. Veness said a local truck driver saw the suspect vehicle turn onto a dead-end street. The car driver turned around and headed west on Highway 48.
Birchwood Area Police Officer Pete Weatherhead spotted the suspect vehicle, a silver Pontiac Bonneville, and began pursuing it. The vehicle turned onto Deer Lake Road and two individuals bailed out and fled. Weatherhead pursued on foot and took one of the supects into custody. The other suspect fled into the woods.
The vehicle’s driver continued south into Rusk County, where the vehicle was disabled by Rusk County deputies, and the driver was shot and killed.
Meanwhile, a massive manhunt was undertaken Friday afternoon and evening in the heavily-wooded Deer Lake area for the one suspect who remained at large. A perimeter was set up around the search area, aided by the Exeland Fire Department, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wardens and the Wisconsin State Patrol, which supplied an airplane. A Radisson ambulance crew stood by at a staging area at the junction of Highway C and Deer Lake Road.
Local residents were alerted that the suspect was in the area and there was a search going on.
“Once it got dark, we had to pull them (the officers and other searchers) out of the woods,” Sheriff’s Investigator Gary Gillis said late Friday evening. “Our county officers will maintain patrol on the roads tonight,” he added.
The arrested suspect was transported to the Sawyer County Jail and is being held there. Lt. Barthel said the investigation continues by the Sawyer County Sheriff’s Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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Following is the rundown on the bank robbery last weekend as reported in the Sawyer County paper. (There is another tragic story that happened here in Birchwood last weekend also. I will put that story on here next time.)
Two charged with armed robbery of Exeland bank; third suspect shot, killed
by Terrell Boettcher
News Editor
Charged are Steven Ray Willard Jr., 19, of Phillips and Robert H. McCallie, 21, of Kennan. Willard was arrested near Deer Lake west of Exeland shortly after the robbery was reported, and McCallie was arrested in Rhinelander on Sunday. Willard is being held in the Sawyer County Jail on a $100,000 cash bond pending an initial court appearance on Nov. 30. A warrant has been issued for McCallie.
According to an investigator’s report, Willard had more than $10,000 on his person when he was apprehended by a pursuing Birchwood police officer near Deer Lake west of Exeland. Other currency was recovered along the route that he and McCallie took running through the woods, for a total of more than $12,000.
The third suspect, Rudolph P. Frenzer, 50, of Ingram was shot and killed while exchanging gunfire with pursuing officers on Highway 8 west of Bruce.
At 2:29 p.m. Friday, the Sawyer County Sheriff’s Dispatch Center received a report of a holdup alarm at the Dairyland State Bank at the corner of Highway 48 and Grant Avenue. The sheriff’s department requested mutual aid from the Rusk, Washburn and Barron County sheriff’s departments, as well as K-9 units from the St. Croix County Sheriff’s Department and Rice Lake Police Department.
According to an incident report filed this week by Sawyer County Sheriff’s Investigator Dan Ross, he and an FBI agent interviewed the teller at the bank. The teller said that at 2:22 p.m., two individuals wearing Halloween masks (described by a witness as “spook” masks), yellow chore gloves and blue, plaid, hooded jackets entered the bank and demanded that the teller give them money. One individual had a silver-colored pistol and pointed it at the teller during the incident.
Initially the teller thought they were joking, but the two individuals became very stern, used foul language towards the teller and told the teller that they were serious. The teller gave them the money from the teller drawer at the counter. The robbers asked where the safe was. They then obtained money from the safe. Some of the money had the serial numbers recorded, which later was provided to investigators.
The robbers then directed the teller to lie face down on the floor and remain there. They fled the bank and ran down the street to a waiting car, described as a silver-colored Pontiac Bonneville. The teller walked up to the bank door to try to see a vehicle, saw a local resident and told the resident that the bank had just been robbed by the persons who fled. The local resident then followed the suspects away from the bank.
Shortly thereafter, Birchwood Area Police Officer Pete Weatherhead located the suspects’ vehicle, which fled onto Deer Lake Road. The driver stopped and two persons exited the vehicle and fled into the woods. The driver continued southbound on Deer Lake Road. Weatherhead took Willard into custody and McCallie and Frenzer remained at large. Willard subsequently was transported to the Sawyer County Jail by a sheriff’s deputy.
During an interview with investigators, Willard said that he “was not the one with the gun” at the bank. He said the owner of the Pontiac was Frenzer, and he knew of Frenzer from other persons talking about him; he had heard that Frenzer was a methamphetamine dealer.
Willard claimed that he had never met Frenzer until the day of the robbery. He said McCallie received a phone call from Frenzer, after which McCallie talked Willard into participating in the bank robbery.
Willard told investigators that around 1 p.m. Oct. 30, Willard and McCallie went to Frenzer’s residence in Kennan and met with him. They got into his car with him and traveled to Ladysmith, where they bought some gas and cigarettes. They then went to another store, where “Rudy” Frenzer instructed them to go in and purchase Halloween masks and bags. The masks were a Richard Nixon mask and a Bernie Madoff mask. Willard said they then drove to the bank in Exeland and committed the robbery.
Willard said McCallie had the pistol and pointed it at the teller; Willard said he carried a bag into the building and collected some of the money during the robbery. He said he was unarmed.
Willard said that after the robbery, they ran and got into the car and were followed by a person in a large red truck (identified by a witness as a county highway truck). The truck driver followed them until they encountered the Birchwood police officer, who pursued them. After Frenzer stopped during the pursuit and told them to get out of the car, he and McCallie fled. Frenzer then took off into the woods. Willard was captured by Officer Weatherhead after he heard gunshots and commands to get down on the ground.
After Willard was arrested, officers recovered $10,860 that he had stuffed into a sock and recovered another $1,600 along the route that Willard took running through the woods and was dropped either by him or McCallie. An investigator checked some of the currency recovered from Willard and found 10 bills that had recorded serial numbers reported by the bank.
After Willard was arrested, an extensive manhunt for the other suspect was initiated in the heavily-wooded Deer Lake area. A perimeter was set up around the search area, aided by the Exeland Fire Department, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wardens and the Wisconsin State Patrol, which supplied an airplane. A Radisson ambulance crew stood by at a staging area at the junction of Highway C and Deer Lake Road.
Local residents were alerted that the suspect was in the area and there was a search going on. Cabins and buildings in the area were searched.
On Friday afternoon, Rusk County sheriff’s deputies, the Wisconsin State Patrol and Wisconsin DNR responded to the area where the bank robbery suspect vehicle was reported to be traveling and eventually located it. When officers attempted to stop it, a pursuit took place.
During the pursuit, the driver of the suspect vehicle reportedly fired shots at the officers in pursuit. After a pursuit of about 10 miles, the vehicle ultimately stopped after being involved in a collision with two Rusk County sheriff’s patrol cars. At the crash scene, shots were fired and the suspect later identified as Rudolph Frenzer was killed.
One deputy sustained minor injuries in the incident. An outside agency, the Barron County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the incident.
A green 2001 Ford F-150 extended-cab truck that McCallie allegedly stole from north of Ladysmith shortly after the robbery was recovered at the location where McCallie was arrested in Oneida County.
This is the story of more of what all happened around here last weekend. A bank robbery, and then a murder suicide. Prayers requested for the Palm family.
Two area men dead in apparent murder-suicide
Victim found in burning home near Birchwood; suspected killer found near Spooner
by Terrell Boettcher
News Editor
At 7:30 p.m. last Saturday, the Sawyer County Sheriff’s Department dispatch center received a report of a possible structure fire at 1332 Highway F in the town of Edgewater, near the junction with Highway DD northeast of Birchwood. Sheriff’s deputies and Birchwood police officers were dispatched to the scene, along with the Birchwood Fire Department.
Responding units discovered the body of a 43-year-old man in the structure. The deceased man was identified as Palm.
The nature of the man’s wounds, along with evidence located near the body, led officers to believe that the man was the victim of a homicide, said Sawyer County Chief Deputy Tim Zeigle.
After questioning relatives and acquaintances of the deceased man, officers were able to develop a suspect. Numerous agencies, including Sawyer and Washburn County sheriff’s deputies, state troopers, National Park Service rangers, Department of Natural Resources airplane, Spooner police, the state fire marshal’s office and the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation, searched throughout the night in an attempt to locate the suspect.
At approximately 10 a.m. Sunday, officers located the suspect’s vehicle at an abandoned mobile home on Washburn County Highway A northeast of Spooner. Washburn and Sawyer County SWAT teams were activated.
Using an armored vehicle provided by the Douglas County sheriff’s office, the response teams converged on the residence. After containing the area and receiving no response from the residence, officers deployed chemical munitions and searched the residence. They found no one inside.
During the assault on the residence, the special response teams located a charred body in a smoldering fire nearby. Due to the burned condition of the body, it was transported to the Ramsey County medical examiner’s office for positive identification and forensic examination, said Washburn County Chief Deputy Mike Richter.
The body was transported by Washburn County officials to St. Paul, where a forensic odontologist positively identified it as that of Garcia, 31, of Stone Lake, Richter said.
Zeigle stated that preliminary reports indicate that Garcia had a previous relationship with the sister of David Palm. That relationship ended a couple of years ago. The couple had a child together.
“It is believed that Garcia had a vendetta against the Palm family due to the break-up of the relationship and child custody issues,” Zeigle said.
After Palm was killed and prior to his apparent suicide, Garcia informed several acquaintances that he was responsible for the death of David Palm and the arson at the Palm residence, Zeigle added.
Evidence indicates that Garcia committed suicide at the residence on Washburn County A early Sunday, Nov. 1. The investigation of that scene indicates that Garcia shot himself and simultaneously incinerated himself on a pile of burning tires, Zeigle said.
The examination of the Garcia death scene was delayed for several hours on Sunday after officers located three pipe bombs in a back pack near the body. Area residents were evacuated from their homes and all activity at the scene was halted while the Marathon County bomb squad was summoned to remove the pipe bombs.
During the examination of the Garcia scene, officials located two handguns in the debris. One of those guns is believed to have been the weapon used to murder David Palm, Zeigle said.
Richter said indications are that after starting the fire at the Palm residence, Garcia proceeded to Spooner, where he was observed drinking in local bars. It is believed that he then went to the Highway A address, where he started another fire and took his own life.
Investigations continue in both Sawyer and Washburn counties regarding the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Palm and Garcia.
According to the Wisconsin Circuit Court online database, Garcia was scheduled to appear in Barron County Circuit Court in the coming weeks on a charge of criminal disorderly conduct for a domestic abuse offense which happened on July 2, 2009. A plea hearing was scheduled for Nov. 4 and a jury trial for Nov. 18.
An account has been set up at Dairy State Bank in Birchwood to assist the Palm family. Individuals who wish to donate may contact any Dairy State Bank branch.
THERE WERE SOME THAT NEVER MISSED AN OPPORTUNITY
This one happened over in plant two. I don’t remember what year they built it, but this building was built to house the new die cast plant. The whole system of servicing the die cast machines was modernized here, and the hot aluminum was delivered via overhead cranes. I was the first crane operator in this new facility, and delivered the first bucket of aluminum to the die cast machines. (And for ten more years) The overhead monorail circled the whole die cast department and had switches that enabled the cranes to cross the department in two different places, go to the furnaces upstairs, and also go to the old smelter building. Upstairs, there were eight electric furnaces. In the other building, there were three electric furnaces plus two big gas fired furnaces where we produced ingots.
I’ll try to get a sketch of the departments on here so you get an idea of how things were laid out in die cast and melt down in Plant #2.
I mentioned before that I ran one of the overhead cranes out of the Melt Down Dept. in plant Two. This is a poor sketch of the overhead monorail track over the Die Cast Dept. and the Melt Down Dept. (As I remember it). The long sides of the sketch were around 100 yards long, so it was a pretty good sized department. I have not shown the die cast machines in this sketch, but they were located along the long outside lines of the rectangle. There was a row of these machines on the outside of the rail, and a row of them on the inside. Each die cast machine had a holding pot set close to the rail so that the spouts on the crane bucket just overlapped the spout on each holding pot. The bucket on the crane had a pour spout on each side that the furnace operators raised for me when the bucket was full. They had to lower these spouts when they were filling the bucket. There were switches in the rail that I could throw from a spot back from them, so once I had picked up the hot aluminum, I could go anywhere in the department. There were two crossovers across the department, and I could also go into the old smelter building and pick up metal in there. The monorail for the cranes was hung about ten feet above the floor in the die cast building. In the up position, the bottom of the bucket was at about six feet above the floor. When I filled the holding pots, the bucket would be lowered to about four feet, the spouts matched up, the bucket tipped and the hot aluminum poured. I can’t remember, but I believe that we had somewhere between 40 and 50 die cast machines of different sizes in the department.
Anyhow, back to my story about a mean trick. We had a fellow named Smitty, that was one of the furnace operators who had a rather touchy stomach. He had a hard time being around any time that anyone would tell a story that had anything nasty in it. Consequently, it seemed that some of the other fellows went out of their way to irritate him. They were forever inventing stories that had to do with maggots, blowflies, or any such topic. Well, one afternoon, the furnaces were loaded, and we were waiting for them to come up to heat. Smitty was sitting on a bench near the furnaces eating his lunch. I was somewhere in the area doing something when Arnie came up to me and said “Watch this”. He proceeded over to a peanut vending machine. Got two pennies worth of peanuts, put them in his mouth, chewed them up good, and then walked over close to where Smitty was sitting and spewed them out on the floor. Poor old Smitty spent the next few minutes getting well acquainted with one of the trash barrels.
WATER PISTOL GAMES
Who ever said that work had to be boring? I mentioned before that it seems like whenever you get a few guys working together for a period of time, someone will get something started, and once it starts, there is no telling where it will end. This tale goes back to the days when I was running the crane and pouring hot aluminum for the die casters. In that last story I showed a rough sketch of the monorail around the department, and sort of an idea of how things operated. I have a picture of me in at the furnaces getting a bucket of hot aluminum so that you can have an idea of what the cranes looked like.
. There is plate glass at the front and rear of the operators area, but the sides were open. The controls on the crane were actually very simple. On the right was a lever for forward or reverse. On the left was a lever to raise or lower the bucket. There was a small lever that controlled the tipping of the bucket, and there were two buttons that you could use to throw the switches either left or right depending on which way you wanted to go. There was also a buzzer that activated whenever you were in motion so that folks on the floor knew that you were in the area. Management did not recommend folks walking around under that bucket of hot metal. (That bucket in the picture held about 1000# of aluminum and was at about 1400 degrees when poured out of the furnaces.) As far as pouring the metal into the holding pots, it was a matter of a little co-ordination in lowering and tipping the bucket and matching up the spouts all at the same time. I liked to think that I was pretty good at it.
Since the sides were open on the crane, I was fair game for anything that anyone took a notion to throw up there at me. One of the furnace repair guys was an old guy that always had a big wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth. There were many times that if he happened to be near when he was ready to dispose of the wad, it was sure to wind up in the cab with me. When things like that happened, I could not just step out and go after him, so he or whoever had the advantage. Well, one day someone brought in a water pistol, and I don’t remember how it all got started, but it was not long after that when I became the proud owner of one of those weapons and carried it in the crane for self protection. (Or other uses).
Well, now it just so happened that one of the die casters and I, (We’ll call him “Hillbilly”), had a habit of insulting each other about whatever came to mind. This was not malicious in any way, just a way of communicating with each other while we were working. O.K.,——now that I was armed with this weapon and had used it against others that were similarly armed, I began to think that it was time to expand operations, and “Hillbilly” just happened to offer the perfect opportunity for a little mischief. The machine that he ran was the next to last machine on the outside of the far line close to the corner where the overhead track made the curve. I filled his holding pot, had my bucket up, waited for him to put a shot in his machine, and as soon as he was busy doing that and had his back to me, I started the crane and let him have it with the squirt gun at the same time. By the time he got a chance to look around to see where the water came from I was headed around the corner. I could look back and see that he had no idea where it came from. I thought, “Boy, this is a neat set-up”. A couple of hours later, I did the same thing to him. When I looked back this time, I could sort of tell that he was really getting concerned because he was really looking things over. I waited until the next time that he needed his pot filled and got him again. This time when I looked back, he was walking down the aisle heading in the direction of Machine Repair. The next time that I went around that part of the department I could see two of the repairmen starting to take things apart on his machine. I figured that it was time to retire my water pistol, and I never did tell him what had happened to him.
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I know that I have not posted on here for a while, but when I looked I could hardly believe that it ‘s been three weeks. That is because I have been busy trying to get my act together before Christmas. Just seems like there is never enough time to complete anything that I start. I did get my Christmas letter and card all written, designed, printed, and mailed out to my list of family and friends.
While I was doing that and other things such as trying to keep up with e-mail, trying to keep the house and home half way straight, etc., the days have a habit of melting away. I did take some time out and made a feeder for the birds and squirrels. I set it out by my picnic area where we have a good view of it. It has been out there for about a week. So far, it is a great hit with all the local Blue Jays and some of the squirrels.
I was going to show a picture of one of my first customers out there, but I seem to be having a problem downloading pictures from the camera to the computer. So sorry about that, but I guess that there won’t be any pictures till I get the problem sorted out. At least this lets anyone know that I’m still here and trying.
Christmas in two days off, but the snow started here in the big town of Leminton about a half an hour ago. It is supposed to be a big one, but I guess that we will just have to see how we do here. We here at the Shanty are all prepared to poke wood in the stove, stare out the front window and watch our blessings fall down out of the sky. (Local farmers say that we need moisture in the ground for the hay crop next year.) At any rate, it is nice not to really have to be out in it on the highways and byways. I think that I have put in my share of that.
One more day, and the year 2009 will be gone. 2010 is coming, and we start all over again. It has been a year where there has been much to do about the things that this present administration is trying to tell us that we need. I have not said anything about that on this blog so far,—lets just say that I am not in favor of any of it, and let it go at that. It is in the Lord’s hands, and I think that He can handle it. I have personal problems of my own, like trying to remember to write 2010 on my checks now, and what I had for breakfast this morning,—-or if I had any. I just had my 80th birthday, and these are some serious issues.
Anyhow, Christmas has come and gone. The blessings are still there for us, and Jesus is not only the reason for the season, He is the reason for our hope.
Seems like this past couple of weeks have been busy, but I am having a problem determining whether I have accomplished anything or not. One thing that I have really enjoyed is the Christmas cards and letters from all of our friends and relatives. It is great to get an update from those that we love and care about. Even though we don’t see many of them, and there are a lot of miles between, it is good to reconnect.
I mentioned last time that I was having a problem with downloading pictures to the computer. Anyhow, the problem is not solved yet, but I did find a couple that were not where I thought that they should be. I was going to show the bird and squirrel feeder that I set out a couple of weeks ago, so will see if I can do it now.
Charley Brown tree
Also, Brenda sent us a Charlie Brown Christmas tree, and I would like to share that with everyone.
Feeder
THE “BEEPER” STORY
Looks like a keeper
I remember Beeper: And all of the problems that she had as she was growing up. Since she was going to be an outside dog, I built a doghouse for her over the wellhead at the side of the house. Next, I put in a pen made of six foot wire fencing. The gate was on one end, and the doghouse was on the other. She absolutely hated it in there, and made every effort to show us just how much. She tried to dig under it, she chewed the siding off the house, she barked constantly, and did whatever she could to let us know that she did not want to be in there. We thought for a while that we had made a mistake by getting her, and considered giving her away to someone or sending her to the dog pound. As a last resort, I decided that I would try putting her on a chain in the yard instead of keeping her in the pen. It proved to be the answer to her problem. She could move around more and she could see more of what was going on in the yard. The dreaded pen came down, and she got a new dog house in her new location. We got a new and different dog. If dogs can have claustrophobia, she had it bad.
Anywhere but here
I remember Beeper: And all the hours that we spent together as she learned how to sit, to lay down, to stay, to come, and to heel. What a tedious thing it was for her to do all those things over and over till she got it right. It was much more fun when the lessons were over with and we could be buddies again. She could run and do the things that dogs were meant to do. There were many relapses for her when she would decide that she didn’t want to mind. This always got the program started again and we would work at it until the conflict of the minds was over. In later years she learned all the commands as hand signals, and I was so proud of her.
I remember Beeper: And her first experiences learning to jump up in the back of the old red pickup truck. How much I was needlessly concerned that she might try to jump out as drove down the road. It did not take her long to realize that when I started the truck it was time for her to go with me, and how disappointed she was when she couldn’t. If I went somewhere and it was cold and rainy, she got to ride up in the cab with me. When we went to visit somewhere, I would open the tailgate and let her out to take care of business, or to play with other dogs. If I went into some ones house for a while, I would come out later, and find back up in the bed of the pickup waiting for me. She was a good passenger, and never complained that it took to long to get somewhere.
I remember Beeper: And how from the time when she was a puppy, she did not like to be wet. She was never inclined to swim, nor would she get close to me if I had the water hose running for any reason. Occasionally she would let her guard down and I would spray her, but not much, because she was gone in a flash. She was content to stay just out of reach and watch me. A bath was just about the most degrading thing that could happen to her. She would come to me when I thought it was time for one, but with such an attitude. I would run a hose from the utility sink out the back door so that we could use warm water. When she saw that hose running and I would call her, she would come, but it was with head down, and tail between her legs. When the bath was over and she was rinsed off, there was an instant transformation. How she would shake and then start to run around the yard. Next came the rolling and sliding along in the grass or leaves until most of that terrible stuff was off of her. Such pleasure to have that over with, and we could be friends again.
I remember Beeper: When she got sick and got so weak that she could not get up. What a helpless feeling we had, and how worried we were till we got her to the vet. The doctor determined that she had become infected with Lymes Disease. After a shot and some other medication she recovered quickly, and our dog was back. How thankful we were.
I remember Beeper: When I see a squirrel and think of all the busy hours she spent chasing them through the woods. How she wished that she could climb trees like they could, and not being able to understand why she couldn’t. How she liked to go tearing around the corner of the neighbors house and do a surprise raid on the furry freeloaders at the bird feeders. They always made it up the hard maple tree with just inches to spare, but she did her best to try to show them how serious it could be by standing as high as she could on the tree and barking and chewing the bark. Other times if she saw one off in the distance, she would do a sneak on them part way, and then run for all she was worth. They always eluded her, but she never tired of the game.
Ladder please
I remember Beeper: And how over time, she learned where the boundaries of her territory were, and how protective of it she was. How she greeted everyone who drove into the yard as though she would tear them apart, but it was all bluff. As soon as they got out of the car, the greetings were friendly, and she would have to say “hello” to each person who came. It was a different story when a deer or some other strange animal came into her yard. They had to leave by the quickest route that they could find. After they were well out of sight, she was content to come back to the house and lay down on the porch and watch for the next one who would dare to trespass.
I remember Beeper: And all the things that she accepted responsibility for. She had two houses and two yards to watch over. She had our house plus Fred and Kathies and all the fifteen or so acres around them to patrol. Most of the time when she was not in sight, she was near enough to come on the run as soon as she heard me call for her. Along with the responsibility came some perks for her. Hardly a day went by that Kathie did not have some sort of a snack for her as evidenced by the empty paper plates and cottage cheese containers that had to be picked up. She had her own dog house at each place. When Lou and I would be gone for more than a day, she just moved to her other home with the required amount of food to last till we came back. She seemed to know when we were going, and she tolerated it. Then how happy she was to see us when we returned.
I remember Beeper: And how for a dog that weighed 85 or 90 pounds all of her adult life was so polite with her food. Whenever she was fed, she would sit and wait till she was told that it was all right. Many times she would eat just a little and then leave the rest till later and then come back and finish it. She would allow anyone to take food or bones from her without showing any hostility. Several times when other dogs have visited, I have seen them go to her dish and eat everything in it. She would just stand back and watch them do it without doing anything to stop them. She loved her dog bone snacks and I would tease her by holding one between my thumb and forefinger with just half an inch or so sticking out. It would take her four or five bites to get it all, but I did not have to be concerned about her pinching my fingers. Such a gentle mouth, and such a gracious host to visiting dogs.
I remember Beeper: And I think of her morning ritual. Most nights she was chained outside and slept in her dog house unless it was extremely cold. Each morning I would take a hand full of her dog bones and drop them by the porch before I took her off her chain. After we had greeted each other and she was loose, she would run over to her bones and pick up one or two of them in her mouth and then start to look for just the right spot to bury whatever she had. Many times it was a hard decision for her. Especially bad cases were when the ground was frozen and she could not dig. I have seen her take as long as ten minutes before she could decide what to do with it, and I can recall one time that she just brought it back to the porch and ate it along with all the rest.
I remember Beeper: And how “Stick” was one of her favorite games. She loved to carry sticks around in her mouth, and the size of some of them was a constant source of amazement to everyone who watched her. Whenever I would mention “stick” to her, she would start to look for one. Her idea of fun with a stick was to play keep-a- way with it. She would always go and get it when I threw it for her, but she did not like to give it back. She was an expert at keeping her backside between the stick and whoever wanted it. This applied to myself, other people, or other dogs. She always welcomed any kids or other dogs to her yard, and would run and play with them for hours. Another of her favorite toys was an empty plastic milk carton. She was fascinated at the sound that it made when she chewed on it. She was never in need of any of those expensive toys.
The bigger the better
Really noisy when you chew on them
I remember Beeper: And how much she enjoyed having her coat brushed. She learned to go into the garage and get her brush from off of the work bench and take it up to the flat top of her old dog house. She would let me have the brush, and then I could go to work on her. It was a project in the spring when she started shedding her winter coat. When we would finish the job, she would jump down and run around like that was the greatest thing in the world. I would be left to pick up all the hair and take the brush back and put it where it belonged.
I remember Beeper: And the time I had her out in the woods with me cutting firewood when she discovered a porcupine in a hollow log. It was all very exciting till she tried to help it out of the log. The look of consternation on her face when she came out with her nose full of quills. I had to bring her home and try to pull the quills out. She didn’t want the quills, but she wouldn’t let me get close enough with the pliers to pull them out either. I finally got a rope and tied her up so tight that she could not move and then pulled them out. Boy, was she glad when that was all over with.
I remember Beeper: And how excited she would get if a bear would come around our place. Her barking sounded much more ferocious whenever one was in the yard. They had to either leave in a hurry or get up a tree. Beeper never had a clue that she was no match for a full grown bear. One time a yearling cub and his mother came into the yard and things got extremely busy. The cub went up a tree and Beeper and mama bear were faced off about six feet apart. When the bear charged, she had enough sense to take evasive action. The only way to end these sessions was for me to get Beeper by the collar and take her into the house so the bears could leave as gracefully as possible.
I remember Beeper:And another experience that she had with another one of those strange wood creatures. She had been in the house with us one afternoon. We both went outside, and I knew immediately that something was out of the ordinary. She became excited and started running around the yard on a hot track. She went behind the garage where I couldn’t see her. There was a commotion and some weird noises, then she appeared from the other side of the garage. What a sight to behold. She was foaming at the mouth and making swipes at her face with her paws. She had found the intruder and got the full load in her mouth when she grabbed Mr. Skunk by the backside. I know that the next few minutes were long for her, but it was not over yet. There were more indignities in store for her. Not just one bath, but three. Someone had told us that tomato juice worked wonders in instances like that, and we gave it a good test. I think that it did a good job, but at any rate, it was a good exercise in togetherness for both of us.
I remember Beeper: And how like all dogs, she liked to roll around in anything stinky that she could find in the neighborhood. When she did this, the standard remedy was a good bath. Unless I found what she was rolling in and disposed of it, this procedure could, and many times was a daily routine. Apparently she figured that it was worth the indignity of the baths.
I remember Beeper: And how she would sit on the front porch and stare in the window when she wanted to be inside. She knew that if she did that long enough, eventually, someone would let her in. About 75% of the time, it was Lou who would feel sorry for her and open the door and let her in. I tried to explain to her that being outside in the cold was good for her coat.
I remember Beeper: And some of the times that we would leave her alone in the house for an afternoon or evening when we would go somewhere. How embarrassing for her if she happened to be asleep when we opened the door and she started barking and then discovered that it was us.
I remember Beeper: And a period of time when she lost her hearing when lightning struck close to her doghouse. She was loose most of the time and had the run of the place. The exception was at night when I kept her tied. One night during this period, she started to bark after we had gone to bed. I got up and checked on her, but could not see anything wrong. I made her stop barking and made her go back into her doghouse. I had hardly gotten back in bed before she started barking again. I got up and checked again, and saw that she was looking up into a tree over her doghouse. I got the big light and went out and checked expecting to see a coon up there. It was a bear cub instead. She did not know that it was there till she smelled it. She got to spend the rest of the night in the house so that the cub could get down from the tree and leave. This happened two nights in a row, and then we never saw the little bear again.
I remember Beeper: And how she liked to hunt chipmunks. I think that she learned the difference between them and squirrels and the fact that I considered that the chipmunks were destructive and therefore not desirable and the grey squirrels were all right. When she chased a chipmunk up into a tree, she would stay by that tree for hours if necessary to keep it there until I came along with the gun to take care of the situation. Once the chipmunk was dead, she would have nothing to do with it. The hunt was over and I would have to do the cleanup work. What a team.
I remember Beeper: And how the front porch was one of her favorite spots. She could look in the window and beg to be let in the house. She could lay there or sit there and watch the driveway and both houses and yards to see if there was any business to take care of . It was a place where she could be out of the rain on the nastier days, and besides being a good observation deck, it was an excellent launch pad when she needed to get going in a hurry.
I remember Beeper: And the foggy evening that the phone rang and I heard that she had been hit by a car down on the road in front of our driveway. How hard it was to believe because I had looked out just a few minutes before and she had been laying on the porch. I have to believe that she was doing her job as she saw it. I think that she had chased her last deer out of her yard. She was our treasure. Thank you “Beeper” for the memories.
6-1-1993 “Beeper” 2-25-2000
It’s been sort of a busy week for us this week, but a good one. Weather has been pretty decent so have been able to get along with the wood stove just putting along. Not a great demand for more wood in it. I think we are at the tail end of our January thaw. Weather man says snow and colder weather coming. Yuk !!
Niece Linda and husband Larry came over from Minnesota to spend some time with us. Made two excursions to Hayweird to do some shopping and went out to eat. Kept Larry busy playing with Josie, feeding the squirrels and Blue Jays. We also let him win one game of “MAY I”.
Seems like I had a failure in that last post that I did last week. I had problems putting my “BEEPER STORY’ in that post, and now I find that I had more problems than I thought. I see now that what I did get in there got duplicated so am going to have to see what I can do to get that fixed. Guess that will be more of my learning experience, so that will be under construction for a while. I may try to put some pictures in there this time too. Please pray that I don’t mess it up to bad.
I mentioned before that I was trying something new for me in that post I put in here on the 18th. I wanted to put the story of my dog Beeper in here that I wrote several years ago and have in my documents. I found out that I could not just paste it in here because of the different sized fonts. Everything came out in capital letters, so I had to figure out how to get around that problem. Got that sorted out, and then decided to see about putting some of her pictures in here too. I could not find the pictures that I wanted in my files, so I had to scan the hard copies. I’m not real happy with the results there, but I guess that it was a good learning experience for me, and anything that this old guy can learn is a plus.
Well, another week coming to an end. I hope that this cold weather is about to come to an end too. I’m dropping in a picture of the sight as I got up and going this morning.
I like the inside better
Thats right folks. The thermometer says 15 below. The picture is sort of fuzzy cause I took it through the window. I wasn’t going outside to take it. I felt that I was much safer on the inside with the fire. Thank you. I really like the fact that I can sit right there and put another piece of wood in the stove as necessary.
Most exciting thing that happened this week on the “outside” was that Audrey Z. did the driving to get me over to get a haircut and get to the post office to mail some letters.
Here at home, I have spent a lot of time at the computer trying to learn something new. I aquired some information about doing some things to the looks of this blog. I am working on some ideas so if you click on it and one of these days it has a different look to it, or it dissappears altogether, something will have happened. Could be good, or bad—who knows? Only time will tell. Wish me luck.
I am still here. I know that it has been a while since I have checked in here, and the best that I can do right now is to try and explain how come. I guess that I have just been to busy doing to many other things. You could ask me what other things, and I would not be able to answer that except for this past week and that has been an exciting and busy time. Brenda and Ivan, my daughter and son-in-law decided to lay a blessing on me in the form of a new computer. Well, it arrived at the house last Wednesday, and from the time that it got here, things have been in a state of slight confusion. First of all, it had to be unpacked and set up. Then began the process of transferring files and such from the old compter. Some of these chores are completely new to me, so I have been proceeding at a not so rapid pace. Anyhow, thanks to a thing called “An Easy Transfer Cable” that Ivan provided, even I finally got that done. After that, I have been installing some of the programs that I have of the other computer plus some new things that I am trying. Some of them call for being connected to the internet and having my printer hooked to the same machine to do what I want to do. This gets to be great fun getting the right wires in the right places. It was a slow process, but I was making progress, till I discovered that we did not have any phone service. Now, this was a problem. I went over to Katie’s to see whether she or Bernice’s phones were working. Nobody home at either place, so that didn’t help. Later that evening, Royce and Audrey stopped in to see what was going on. After talking the situation over, we decided that Audrey would call the phone company the next morning. I had been trying to set up my e-mail account on the new machine and had not been doing any good with that. I hooked my internet hookup to the old computer and discovered that I could send e-mails. ????? That was strange. In the process of switching wires around from one machine to another, I left one wire unplugged. Just out of curiosity, I picked up my phone and checked for a dial tone. To my amazement, I had one. I don’t understand it, but that wire is still unplugged. Audrey was not able to get hold of the phone repair man the next morning, and it is a good thing or I would have had a bill for having someone make a service call to tell me how dumb I was. At any rate, it has been a busy time, and I’m not done yet. Pray for me. I’m putting in a picture of my temporary confusion.
I think that it is time for me to get back on here with some sort of explanation of why I have not been on here for a while. —-How about, I got lazy. Well, not really, it just seems that I have had to many things going lately, and it has been a problem trying to keep up with them. I shall try to list some of the more memorable events.
The weather has warmed up considerably. One of the most looked for events since I last posted was, the dissapearance of the last of our snow crop, and the ability to let the fire go out on occasion. Still got lots of wood if the need should arise. The melt did create a problem for me though. The gradual melt created an ice dam on the north side of my roof, and when it slid off, it took the antenae for my XM radio with it. I had to get a new one to replace that. Not a big deal, but I found another place to mount it so that it won’t happen that way again.
I know that I mentioned it somewhere, but will do it again. I was involved in changing all my information from my old computer to my new one compliments of Ivan and Brenda. With some expert help from them, it went very well, and I’m impressed with the new system. Went from Windows XP to Windows 7 Home Premium with Flat Screen Monitor. Love it !!
We have been involved in our share of Dr. appointments recently. Three trips to Rice Lake for appointments down there, and one to Marshfield. Our thanks to Katie O. and Royce and Audrey for the driving to and from those exotice places.
Lou and I have had the pleasure of watching close up, one of the results of (The Big Bang Theory) ((Right!!)) We have had an Amarillus bulb for several years. We have brought it out every spring and done all the things that you are supposed to do for it, but have never gotten it to bloom. This year it did, and we will give the credit to who it belongs. It is our Lord who created all things. We got to watch as it first started putting out its leaves, and then the blooms. I am adding some pictures of the process. It was fun. Don’t know what happened, but picture #3 and #4 are in the wrong sequence. Sorry. GB
Amarillus starting to bloom Making progress
Progress
This was the whole "It"
This was the end of "It"
When I got up yesterday morning, as I was sitting in the front room and looking up the hill, I saw something moving up there. After some closer examination, it was determined that it was a turkey. As I watched, she started coming down the hill toward where I have the squirrel and bird feeder. I thought that perhaps I should get some pictures. As usual, I had to get the camera from another part of the house. She was still walking around out there when I got back with the camera so I did get some of her. Here are two of them:
Audrey and Royce stopped over yesterday afternoon for a while for a visit and to bring us some goodies. (Rhubard crunch) When they got here, they mentioned that there was a big coon out in the yard and he had climbed up in one of the big oak trees. Somehow, he must have lost his footing, because he fell down out of that tree and hurt himself real bad. When Josie went out there to check on him, he didn’t seem to have much interest in anything because there wasn’t any response when she shook him. Usually, coons prowl around at night, so he may have been confused by being out in the daylight.
The week didn’t start of in real great shape. Tuesday, I had to go to the dentist because of a tooth that is beginning to creat a problem for me. He recommended that I be on antibiotics before he would do anything with it. That news necessatated a trip to Rice Lake to pick up the prescription. This turned out to be a learning experience, but I finally did get my drugs. And now am are taking them faithfully, and will be ready for my appointment next Wednesday.
Last month, we got pretty dry around this area, and the fire danger got high. There were many folks who were praying for some rain to take care of that problem. Apparently, the prayers worked, because we did get some. In fact, we may have got more than we bargained for. We got some snow to boot. On Friday evening, it turned to snow just like the weather person said it was going to. It was very pretty, and it was the kind of snow storm that I like. It didn’t last long. It was all gone by this afternoon. I am enclosing some pictures of the various stages of our May snowstorm.
From front porch just before dark Friday Night.
First look out the front window in the morning.
It was melting fast. The squirrel can eat no matter what.
There's a "Josie" that just don't care.
The part that I liked best about this snow was that it was all gone by early afternoon. Now, I’m ready for some of that good old sunshine and warmer weather.
Time seems to go by so fast when you are having fun. Another couple of weeks sneaked by since the last time I got ambitious. Have spent the time with more of our usual activities. There have been trips to doctors and the dentist. More of them scheduled in the near future. I know for a fact that there have been other memorable things that have happened, but a senior moment must have happened because I can’t remember what they were. I do remember the latest though. Josie, our dog was out making her rounds the other night and came home with some souveniers. She had had some sort of an encounter with a porcupine. She only brought home four quills in her face. It could have been much worse, but she did not want anyone messing with them. The next afternoon, with the help of Royce, and a little trickery, we managed to get all four of them out of her. I only got one picture of her with the quills in her. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see a little of where the quills were.
I am in the process of changing the look of this blog, so I am experimenting with some of the different themes that are available to see what I can come up with. If anyone has any comments, please feel free to jump in. I have my own ideas about what I want on here –just not sure how to get there.
Now, I’ll add one of the memories from the days when I was running a semi around the country:
During my truck driving days, I ran for North American Van Lines. Shortly after I started driving for them, I was assigned to a dedicated run where I was hauling new furniture from the Schweiger Furniture Plant in Jefferson, WI. This meant that I could take a load from there to most anywhere in the country, and when I had delivered that load, I would always come back there and pick up another load. Many times, the dispatcher would have a backhaul so that I would not come back empty. Running a truck empty does not pay very well, but I digress.
Long haul trucking was a fascinating business for me. Every day was something different, and you were never sure what the day, or for that matter, the night would bring. Whatever you were doing, or wherever you were at the end of the day, most all drivers were headed for the nearest truck stop where they could park the truck, take a shower, and get something to eat. During the course of these events, there is always the opportunity to meet other drivers and get some sort of conversation going about many different subjects.
This story that I am about to tell was passed on to me by a driver that I met in one of these truck stops while we were sitting in the restaurant one evening. We had gotten around to telling stories about really memorable things that happened to each other while driving these big rigs. He told me about one that happened one night in one of the truck stops that he had stopped at. He said that he was in his bunk sound asleep when someone started banging on his door. He was half asleep when he asked what was going on. The fellow out there asked him if he could get up and move his truck ahead a bit so he could make it by him with his. There was not a whole lot of clearance back there and he was not sure if he could make it. My friend at the table said that since he was still half asleep, he just crawled out of his bunk, got in the drivers seat and pulled his truck ahead. He said that the fellow on the outside gave him the high sign and thanked him when he was far enough ahead. With that concluded, my friend then got back into his bunk and went back to sleep for the rest of the night.
The next morning when he got up to go into the building, he noticed that there was something terribly wrong with his trailer. All of his outside duals were gone. When he had pulled ahead for his fellow trucker, he had jacked up all of his outside wheels when he drove onto the blocks that had been placed by the inside tires. He said that was a hard one to explain to his boss. This is another great example of a good deed that never goes unpunished.
After we arrived at the ER, the attending doctor ordered tests to see if they would give us a clue as to what was going on. The tests appeared to be normal, but they did admit her to the hospital with orders t0 have a CT Scan the next morning. The doctor said that he did suspect that she might be somewhat dehydrated, and that might be causing the problem so she was put on an IV drip. They did the CT Scan thenext morning, and that seemed to be normal also. They did keep her in the hospital until the following Wednesday afternoon, when Audrey and I brought her home with preparations for some follow-up checking by a home health care nurse. She showed up on Friday for a visit, and seemed satisfied that the patient was, and is doing well, and I have to agree.
We would like to thank everyone for their care, concern, and prayers. Just want all of our family and friends to know that you are all such a blessing.
Once you are on the site, you can scroll through the whole thing by using the scroll bar on the right side. This shows each complete post as I have written them. If there are pictures in that post, you can enlarge most of them by clicking on the picture. (Some of the older ones may not. Not sure why). If there are comments on it, you can get to them by clicking on them. On any of these operations, you may go back to the previous one by clicking on the back button. (The back arrow in the top left hand corner.)
If you want to see the posts for a certain month, go to the archives for that particular month. That will show you the beginning of each post for that month beginning with the latest and scroll down to the earliest. To see the whole post, click on the title for that post, (In orange) and it will open up the whole thing. By clicking on the pictures, they will enlarge, or by clicking on the comment, you can see them.
Likewise, the posts are set up in categories, and those work the same way.
If you are interested in making a comment on any part of the blog, (and I welcome them), go to the comment section at the bottom and type it in there. Click the “send” button at the bottom and it comes to me as an e-mail. I then have the option to either accept it or not. If I do, it then shows in the comment section.
I know that most of you are familiar with these things, but just in case anyone is not, I hope that these little tips are of some help. — Enjoy, Gene Burgan . If anyone is interested in keeping up with this blog, there is a spot at the bottom of the comment section where you can click to be notified of new posts to it by e-mail.
P.S
I wrote earlier that my most favorite dog that I have had the pleasure of owning was Beeper. I wrote about her shortly after we lost her. “THE BEEPER STORY: That story is included in this blog. Now I will tell about another dog that I had many years ago. His name was “SMOKEY”, and he has to be a close runner up. I will tell you now about our circumstances at that time in our lives, and how he came into our lives.
The time was in the early 50’s after I had been discharged from the army and Lou and I were living in Round Lake Park, IL. We were living in duplex with a young couple from Minnesota who owned the building and lived on the other side. I guess that I would have to describe this couple as free spirits. Since we were on the outskirts of town, our location was pretty rural. Irv and Nora owned a big Black Labrador dog, a big tom cat, and a pair of geese. They had an old car which did not have a back seat in it. This menagerie sort of had the run of things, including the geese riding in the car wherever they went. The dog was free to roam the neighborhood and help out whenever the opportunity arose.
A short distance behind our house there was a creek. In some places it was narrow enough to jump across, and in other places eight or ten feet across and maybe two or three feet deep. There were some fields back there where I sometimes hunted pheasants. The first time that I took “Smokey” hunting with me, he had a terrible time getting up enough nerve to cross the creek. I kept walking and calling him, and when I was almost out of his sight, he finally did it. He was probably about three months old at the time. He turned out to be a water dog. He grew up with the Collie body and hair, but he was all black, and the Labrador nature took over. Later on as he grew, he loved to go back and play in the creek by himself. There were days when I would come home from work to find him soaking wet all over, including his head. This happened several times and I decided to see how he was doing that. I don’t remember how it came about, but I got chance to sneak up on him one time when he was at the creek. I found him standing in the creek feeling around for turtles with his feet. He found one and put his head under and picked it out. I had never seen that before, and have not seen a dog do that again. I guess those turtles made good toys.
After he was full grown, we moved to a place on Hwy 120 close to the Des Plains River and closer in to Waukegan. This house that we lived in there was the Guest House on an estate that was owned by the wife of a deceased marine general. Can’t remember how many acres there were on the whole estate but if you walked around it in a day, you knew that you had done something. Across the drive from our house was a pond that “Smokey” spent a lot of time playing in. It so happened that this pond had a few turtles in it. For me, they were wonderful target practice. Some time after I had killed three of four of them, “Smokey retrieved them all and brought them up to our back door and was so proud of this good deed. I wasn’t, and took them out and buried them. A couple days later they showed up by the back door again. Don’t remember what I did with them after that, but I do know that they were beginning to get “ripe”.
We had a problem with “Smokey” one afternoon. I will explain how this problem came about. Lou and I had decided to have some steaks for our supper. She got them out of the freezer and laid them on the counter in the kitchen to thaw out. We were doing something else in the other room for a while, and were not paying attention to what was going on in the kitchen. When we did get back in there, there was “Smokey” helping himself to our steaks. I had been sure that he would not do something like that, but since I was mistaken, I started another program pertaining to doggie manners before eating. Whenever I got his supper in his pan, I made him sit before he could touch his food. He really became a good student. He was so good that I was doing something one time after I put his food down and completely forgot about him for a few minutes. When I did remember him, I went to where he was and found him sitting there by his dish over a big puddle of drool and waiting for me to give him the O.K.
He had a wonderful disposition, and was friendly with everyone that he met, with one exception, where he became a fierce guard dog. This happened every week when the garbage man came around to pick up our garbage. Whenever he showed up, “Smokey” was right there wagging his tail and so glad to see him. As soon as it was time to pick up the garbage and put it in the truck, “Smokey” would start to growl and show his teeth. We always had to tell him that it was all right for him to take it.
“Smokey” had another habit that could have gotten him in trouble. Any time that he heard someone shoot close by, he was “gone huntin” with whoever it was.
His end came one night when I called him. He had been over on the other side of the highway, and a car got him as he was coming to me. He was a fun dog.
At Side Lake. John Edward Burgan-his German Shepherd Patsy, his sister Anice and her dog Nuggy
Grace (Tart) Burgan — my Grandmother
Gertrude and Anice – Grandpa’s sisters
Mable (Stephenson) and Maurice Burgan – my Mother and Dad
Lorayne Burgan — My Dad’s sister
Notes for Olaf Staffanson:
Imigrated to the USA in 1880. Moved to Southern Minnesota stayed winter
then moved to Polk County, Minnesota. GG Olaf drank a lot. He would take a load of grain to town sell it then drink. He would buy groceries first, but would sometimes even buy a jug. One time he didn’t come home, so Stephen went to find him. He found him, him and neighbor Hagen about half way home. Hagen had one reign and Olaf the other reign. They were sitting in the wagon arguing. You shouldn’t have pulled the reign-no-you shouldn’t have pulled the reign. As a result, one horse on one side of the tree, and one on the other.
This is an example of how stories of ones antics live on and on.
On a more somber note: The funeral of Henrietta Stephenson (My Grandmother) Died of TB in Feb. 1922.
My Aunt Ellen Stephenson b. Apr.1898 d. May 1994 Never married
My Uncle George Stephenson b. Oct. 1899 d.Mar 1988 Never married
Mabel Elvina Stephenson My Mother b. Apr. 1902 d. June 1977
This picture was taken in July of 1942 in the yard by our house at Side Lake. My sister Betty, my Mother, and my sister Phyllis. I can see that Betty had the forsight to be the precurser to the move to make raggedy pants a thing to be desired. People pay a premium for that ” look” nowadays.
My bike, me, and Rex in front of Grandpa Stephenson’s house. Around 1940 – 1941 ???
Lorraine Haberyan and her pony and cart. Late 1930′s ? Later married Gene Burgan and upgraded to motorcycles.
Another picture of Lou on her pony
I got to thinking that it would probably help any of you who are not familiar with the Side Lake area if I provided a sketch of the area. From our house it is approximately four miles to the store at Side Lake. It is about twenty miles to Hibbing, and going the other way it is about six miles to Bear River. Grandpa Stephenson’s farm was about twelve miles.
This is a close up of where we lived
A little wider view
And a wider view
As long as got the sketches of where we lived, I might as well throw in pictures of the houses. My Grandpa and Grandma Burgan lived in the big house. There were seven of us in the other one. It doesn’t seem like there has been much upkeep on ours.
I have been looking through pictures from that era. Found this one of school days when I was in the second grade at Side Lake. This was a one room school which took care of all eight grades. It looks like the class for this year consisted of fourteen students for the eight grades. I think that we had eighteen one year while I was there. Upon graduating from here, you advanced to High School in Hibbing.
In the front row, brother Dennis, Margaret Lyckholm, (My classmate through the eight grades), Me, and brother Jim. The teacher was Ruth Libke.
This little story started for me one night last week. I was sitting in front of my computer going through my e-mails as is my custom. While I was concentrating on what I was doing there, I thought that I heard a strange sound coming from my printer. Since I did not have anything in the works there, I wondered what was going on with that thing now. After listening for a bit, and not hearing anything else, I went back to what I was doing. I was just getting started again when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. I looked over at the printer again, and looked right a mouse on the paper tray looking right back at me. We stared at each other for a few seconds and then he decided to go back into the printer. Now, seeing a mouse in the house from time to time around here (but not in my printer) is not really any sort of a novelty. It does happen no matter what you do to try to prevent them from getting in. And since they do manage to get in once in a while, I don’t have any qualms about setting mouse traps for them. Just so happened that I had a couple of the traps close by my work area. I quietly reached down and got one of them. Now that I had the trap, what to use for bait? I usually use peanut butter, but not having any right handy, I spotted my bag of trail mix which had some raisins in it. I got a raisin and smashed it onto the trigger plate, and then set the trap and set it up on the paper tray on the printer and waited to see if Mr. Mouse would show himself again. I don’t think that two minutes had gone by when he was back staring at me from the printer. Then he ran over to the trap and snatched that raisin off of the trap without setting it off, and was gone in a flash. (Looked like he had a smirk on his face when he left.)
Needless to say, I was impressed, but I think that I also learned that I needed to do a better job of securing the raisin on there. The next time that I set the trap, I smashed the raisin on there from both sides and the top — much tighter than the first time and left the trap by the printer again. There was a mouse in the trap the next morning, and the raisin was fine. He looked smaller than the one I saw the night before, so it looked like I needed to start a trap line again. I had two traps available, so I baited them and set them on the floor. The next morning, I had two mice for my efforts. (The raisins were fine.) I set the traps again for the next night. I had another mouse within five minutes of shutting off the light that night, and two more in the morning. The next night produced one more. The next night after was another winner. Two more. Last night was a good sign,–nothing. I’m not sure whether a whole family had set up housekeeping somewhere back there, but there had not been any signs at all of them being there. Usually, they leave souveniers around. Anyhow, I think that I have found the perfect bait for them. When installed properly, those raisins really don’t come off very easily, and the mice seem to like them.
News Editor
The suspected growers remain at large and the case remains under investigation.
U.S. District Judge William M. Conley sentenced Steven R. Willard, 20, of Phillips, to 70 months in federal prison for his role in the robbery. The court also sentenced Willard to 3 years of supervised release following his incarceration and ordered him to pay full restitution to the bank.
More of this story appears in the Thursday, July 1, 2010, issue of the
Seems that we are part of a much bigger enterprize around here. I found the following article in the Newsmax News that I get on the computer. I’m assuming that it will be in their magazine. I’m including it here in case anyone is interested.
in Wis. National Forest: Marijuana Megafarm
Thursday, 12 Aug 2010 07:01 PM
Northern Wisconsin’s Chequameqon-Nicolet National Forest is a vast, verdant getaway for hundreds of thousands of campers, hikers and anglers every year. But hidden within was a marijuana megafarm.
Investigators say a band of Hispanic men turned the forest’s southeastern tip into a giant pot farm, growing thousands of plants on remote plots, moving supplies along forgotten logging roads and buying supplies and ammunition at local stores.
Nobody in law enforcement has said it publicly, but the style matches that of Mexican cartels that have been using public land in the United States to grow vast amounts of marijuana and avoid the risk and expense of smuggling the drugs across the border.
“There certainly is an element to this that leads one to believe there is a Hispanic connection here,” Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said. He declined to elaborate.
According to court documents, investigators discovered nine plots of plants in the southeastern tip of the Nicolet section after a person noticed two Hispanic men preparing a grow site in the forest.
Federal, state and local police spent June and July tailing suspected growers, following pickup trucks down abandoned logging roads and watching Hispanic men appear in the trees and toss nylon sacks resembling grain feed bags into the beds.
They followed one suspect to a Fleet Farm in Green Bay, where he purchased six pairs of pruning shears. They watched another man purchase 9 mm ammunition at a nearby Wal-Mart, documents said.
The suspected growers eventually led investigators to a house in Seymour, about 15 miles southwest of Green Bay. According to court documents, the house was a marijuana processing factory.
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, drug agents around the country seized about a million plants a year between 2004 and 2008. In 2008 alone, agents seized or destroyed 7.6 million marijuana plants from about 20,000 illicit plots.
In Wisconsin, the number of seized plants in grew six-fold between 2003 and 2008, a year when more than 32,000 plants were seized. Authorities eradicated $2.5 million worth of marijuana plants in the national forest system alone, said Richard Glodowski, special agent in charge of the U.S. Forest Service’s investigations in the eastern half of the U.S.
Drug investigators believe Mexican cartels are largely responsible for the spike. Growing the drug here helps them get it to major American markets more quickly. They often import unskilled laborers from Mexico to help find the best land and tend their crops.
The Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest covers about 1.5 million acres across northern Wisconsin and is divided into two sections — the 860,000-acre Chequamegon in far northwestern Wisconsin and the 660,000-acre Nicolet portion in northeastern Wisconsin.
The southeastern edge of the Nicolet portion lies about 50 miles from Green Bay and hosts about three-quarters of the 700,000 visitors who travel to both sections each year, said Tony Erba, the forest’s deputy supervisor. Featuring dense woods, streams and lakes, the forest is a veritable playground for campers, hikers, ATV enthusiasts and hunters — and a perfect haven for growing marijuana.
About 163,000 people use the southeastern tip of the Nicolet where the farms were established each year. Most of the plots were in secluded areas, forest supervisor Paul Strong said. But investigators realized bear hunting season and fall leaves would soon bring more people into the woods and decided to take down the operation on Tuesday.
Investigators discovered at least nine different plots in the forest as well as at least 1,000 plants on the adjacent Menominee Indian Reservation.
Oconto County Sheriff Mike Jansen estimated they seized about 50,000 plants, but Van Hollen cautioned that authorities were still counting and the number currently stood closer to 10,000. The attorney general estimated that each plant might yield a pound of marijuana worth about $1,000.
“This amount of marijuana in northern Wisconsin is a big, big deal,” Van Hollen said.
A search of the Seymour house found marijuana drying throughout it and a stash of firearms, including an AK-47 assault rifle. Officers said the smell of pot permeated the entire house. They also raided a storage unit, where they discovered a wire transfer of $2,500 to a man in Modesto, Calif., about $6,000 in cash and 72 pounds worth of processed marijuana in cardboard boxes and garbage bags — yet another cartel grow operation standby.
Eight men were arrested and arraigned Wednesday in federal court on charges of conspiring to manufacture and distribute more than 1,000 marijuana plants and possession with intent to deliver more than 100 marijuana plants. Four more men were arraigned on Thursday. Three were charged with the same counts. The fourth, Bernabe J. Nunez-Guzman, was charged only with conspiracy, but court documents indicate he was the ring leader.
An unnamed informant arrested at the Seymour house told detectives on Wednesday he was in San Jose, Calif., several months ago when he was approached by a man who asked him if he wanted to work at a ranch. This person arranged for the man to travel to Green Bay, where he met Nunez-Guzman.
The informant said he helped dry marijuana at the house and Nunez-Guzman, also known as “Green Bay,” was the boss. He came to the house every 15 days to check on the operation and sent a runner into the woods every three days to check the crop.
Federal defender Krista Halla-Valdes, who represents the four men charged Thursday, said she hasn’t seen any evidence in the case and it’s too early to comment.
Cartel grow recruiters often look for people with family in Mexico so they can use them as leverage to keep the farmers working and quiet. If anyone betrays the farm, they go after the worker’s family, intelligence experts say.
——
Jim with a big one About 1960 with a bow
I think that I will start another categoy here on this blog. I have been thinking that almost everyone of Facebook has a photo album which is great. I thought that it might be a good idea for me to get one started on here. I have some that are special to me, so I think that I will share them. I’m hoping that they will enlarge like some of the others that I have posted on here, and that I will be able to add to the album as I come across them. The only way that I know to find out is to try it. I’m tryin’ !!!!!!
Erin and Grandpa on the water.
Brother Jim--At home in the woods.
This is one that I recieved in an e-mail from a friend. Since I’m one of the “up-there” folks, I thought that it would be good to pass this along, so I’m posting the link to it, and since I get these once in a while, I might as well start a catagory of these.
http://www.caregiverstress.com/2010/07/a-reminder-that-laughter-is-the-best-medicine
In this post I am adding some pictures to show that this old guy is not completely disabled…….It’s more like a challenge. I like to keep giving it a try. I think that my Grandpa Stephenson helps to motivate me. When he passed away, he was four months short of ninty two years of age. When he was eighty, he went out and bought a chainsaw so that it would not be so hard cutting pulp wood. I figure that the least that I can do is run the weed eater a little. GOD IS GOOD.
I say that this is job security because there is never a lack of things to clean up around here.
It was the culmination of a bit of circumstances and some planning and co-ordination, and it went like this.
A while back, Brenda had been doing some research looking up people that we knew. She informed me that Lance, (one of the boys who had lived with us in Mundelein, IL as one of our foster children) was on Facebook. Long story short, we connected and got some conversation going back and forth. As these communications progressed, Lance indicated that sometime if Brenda was coming to visit us, he would like to know about it and that maybe we could get together. Well, —— Brenda had plans at that time to come to Wisconsin to visit us on the 8th of Sept. which was a Wednesday. This information got Lance checking his schedule to see if he could get things on his end under control so that he could work in some vacation time for himself. He could, and he did.
While all this was going on, the only thing that Lou knew was that we (Brenda & I) had been in contact with Lance. She had no idea that he was coming to see us, so this was a total surprise to her.
Brenda arrived here on Wednesday as planned and we had a great time with her as usual. On Thursday, it was a nice day and we were sitting out on the deck in the afternoon chatting when a pickup drove into the yard. Of course, Lou wondered who is that? Guess what? It was Lance. Needless to say, it was not one of those everyday meetings. The last time that we had seen each other face to face was in 1967 when Lance was eight years old. I suspect that it was an emotional time for all of us, —– I know it was for me.!!!!
Anyhow, it was a time of learning about what had been going on in each others lives over all these years. Fourty three to be exact. It was also fun going over some of the memories of the time that we had been together when he and his brother Chris had been with us. It was also the fulfillment of a wish or dream that Lou and I have had over the years that we would somehow get in contact again. Isn’t our God good !!!
I do have to mention that both Brenda and Lance have turned out to be excellent cooks. Between the two of them, we were well fed.
The whole time was really great, but all things seem to come to an end way to soon. Lance had to leave on Sunday morning, and Brenda had to leave on Monday morning. Again, it was a “Good One”.
I had decided that it was time to declare war on the chipmunks around here. It seems that they have become about as prevelant as the mice had been. I have about had it with them burrowing, making nests in vehicles, chewing wires, etc. Got five in the trap today, so that kept me busy taking care of them and resetting the trap. I know there are more. Looking forward to another busy day with them tomorrow.
This afternoon, Royce brought more wood to add to my woodpile, and after that was unloaded, we were up on the porch c0ntemplating having a cup of coffee. I heard a motorcycle coming down the road and commented that “there goes a big Harley”. It came closer and came up Georgia St. and turned right into our driveway and stopped. The lady removed her helmet and asked me if I knew who she was. I told her that I was sure that it had to be a Marg. I was right, it was Marg Peloquin who we had not seen for quite a few years. Somehow or other, I had heard that she was riding, and I had remembered that. Anyhow, she was not able to spend a whole lot of time, but it was great to be able to visit for a few minutes with her. We have been blessed with some distinguished company over the last few days. Brenda, Lance, and now Marg. How great it is that people care enough to come and see us.
And the sound of those big Harley’s are still sweet music to my ears !!!!!
Here it is the 1st of October. I don’t think that there is any doubt that my most favorite season is here. The weather has cooled down, the leaves have turned, and they are falling faster every day. You can see much farther back in the woods. It’s beautiful, and will be for a while. I do have to admit that I’m not really looking forward to seeing the white stuff that will be here before long. I am including a picture of my favorite fern that I get to look at out of my west hall window. (But whatever,——– November 2nd is coming, and I and a lot of folks are looking forward to that.) I am including a picture of my favorite fern that I get to look at out of my west window.
Some of GOD'S handywork
As far as the playing around that I have been involved with lately, there are two projects. The first has to do with another trapping session. It hasn’t been long since I had the mouse problem that I reported on when that happened. This time it is chipmunks. It seems that they reproduce as fast, or faster than rabbits. I have been seeing them around the yard quite often this summer, and I have come to the conclusion that for every one that you see, there are probably a dozen more that you don’t see. These little critters have some bad habits like doing a lot of burrowing around the yard. Making nests in vehicles, and chewing the wires. Had one a while back that chewed a small hole in the plastic gas tank on a mower. Their latest endevor has been to set up housekeeping in the back wall of our house. It gets a little anoying to hear them in the middle of the night rolling acorns around in there. Therefore, that kind of behavior on their part prompted me to start a trapping campaign. The score for the last ten days is sixteen of them.
My other project has been to do some exploring on Google Earth, and Google Maps. With these free programs, you can check out most any area or place in this country. Or the world for that matter. I’m in the learning stage myself, but the possibilities for killing time checking things out seem to be endless. I am including a picture of the drawbridge in Mystic, CT. It was of interest to me because I have driven across it many times when visiting out there. Kind of neat to be able to check it out long distance tonight.
Here we go again trying to remember all that has happened since my last post. I do know that Lou and I have made it for 60 years together. That milestone was observed at our house with a pizza party that was organized and provided by some of our dear friends. My thanks to Audrey and Royce, Fran, Dan and Shirley, and all the others who provided the flowers, pizza, and cake and ice cream and all the cards—and money. And a big thank you to everyone who attended. (A special note: My brother Dennis and his wife Rose Mary have been married longer than we have by a couple years.) It was a great time of remembering some of the highlights of our time together, and laughing over some of them. Story times are fun.
I am not real happy with some of the picures that I took. We had a lot of bright sunlight that afternoon and mine did not turn out very good. I’m including one here that Katie took of Lou and I and the cake.
Earlier in the week, I got to assist Royce in helping to take down a problem tree in Bernice’s yard. It was leaning right over a shed roof over there. Royce did the bull work and I sat in my pickup and did a little pulling with that to keep it from falling on the shed. I’m adding a picture of Royce putting a strap on the tree so that I could pull it away from the shed when Royce cut it.
Royce hooking the strap on the tree
Niece Linda and her husband Larry spent the weekend with us. That was a good time also with them. We got to take a ride up through the Flowage and see all the color around that area as we get into fall. Since we were headed toward Hayward after that ride, we naturally had to stop at Walmart and do a little shopping. The rest of the week-end was spent eating, playing cards, and going over some of our family history. How’s that for busy?
Well, here it is the 19 th of October. The fall color of the trees has come and gone—-along with all the leaves. They are almost all on the ground, so I have started my leaf blowing project. The weather has been beautiful and reasonably warm. Hope that it will stay that way for a while longer, but at this time of year, that is almost to much to hope for. We’ll have to wait and see.
I got an e-mail recently that had a story that I will include here in this post. It is one the likes of which I have never heard before, so I thought that I would pass it on here on my blog. It goes like this:
WORST FIRST DATE STORY EVER
>
> If you didn’t see this on the Tonight show, I hope you’re sitting down
> when you read it. This is probably the funniest date story ever, first
> date or not!!! We have all had bad dates but this takes the cake.
>
> Jay Leno went into the audience to find the most embarrassing first
> date that a woman ever had. The winner described her worst first date
> experience. There was absolutely no question as to why her tale took the
> prize!
>
> She said it was midwinter…Snowing and quite cold…and the guy had
> taken her skiing in the mountains outside Salt Lake City, Utah.
>
> It was a day trip (no overnight). They were strangers, after all, and
> had never met before. The outing was fun but relatively uneventful
> until they were headed home late that afternoon..
>
> They were driving back down the mountain, when she gradually began to
> realize that she should not have had that extra latte. They were about
> an hour away from anywhere with a rest room and in the middle of
> nowhere! Her companion suggested she try to hold it, which she did for a
> while. Unfortunately, because of the heavy snow and slow going, there
> came a point where she told him that he had better stop and let her go
> beside the road, or it would be the front seat of his car.
>
> They stopped and she quickly crawled out beside the car, yanked her
> pants down and started. In the deep snow she didn’t have good footing,
> so she let her butt rest against the rear fender to steady herself. Her
> companion stood on the side of the car watching for traffic and indeed
> was a real gentleman and refrained from peeking. All she could think
> about was the relief she felt despite the rather embarrassing nature of
> the situation.
>
> Upon finishing however, she soon became aware of another sensation…As
> she bent to pull up her pants, the young lady discovered her buttocks
> were firmly glued against the car’s fender. Thoughts of tongues frozen
> to poles immediately came to mind as she attempted to disengage her
> flesh from the icy metal. It was quickly apparent that she had a brand
> new problem, due to the extreme cold.
>
> Horrified by her plight and yet aware of the humor of the moment, she
> answered her date’s concerns about ‘what is taking so long’ with a reply
> that indeed, she was ‘freezing her butt off’ and in need of some
> assistance!
>
> He came around the car as she tried to cover herself with her sweater
> and then, as she looked imploringly into his eyes, he burst out
> laughing. She too, got the giggles and when they finally managed to
> compose themselves, they assessed her dilemma. Obviously, as hysterical
> as the situation was, they also were faced with a real problem.
>
> Both agreed it would take something hot to free her chilly cheeks from
> the grip of the icy metal! Thinking about what had gotten her into the
> predicament in the first place, both quickly realized that there was
> only one way to get her free. So, as she looked the other way, her first
> time date proceeded to unzip his pants and pee her butt off the fender.
>
> As the audience screamed in laughter, she took the Tonight Show prize
> hands down. Or perhaps that should be ‘pants down.’ And you thought
> your first date was embarrassing. Jay Leno’s comment…’This gives a
> whole new meaning to being pissed off.’
>
> Oh and how did the first date turn out? He became her husband and was
> sitting next to her on the Leno show.
>
Last Thursday morning I was sitting in front of the stove getting the fire going. I had been watching a couple of black squirrels off and on as they were running around in the yard. I got to doing something else for a bit, and the next time I looked out the window, there was a buck out at the end of my driveway. As I watched him, he started coming down the drive toward the house. I did get some pictures of him as he came closer, but I could not get “Josie” to stay quiet. She barked, and that was the end of the visit. Was fun watching him though.
Yesterday we got our first taste of what happens to the weather this time of year. For the last three weeks or so, we have had beautiful weather, but it looks like that is over, at least for a while. It started raining yesterday, and it got pretty serious about it. I had water running down the hill and under my driveway. It was washing a lot of the leaves along with it and trying to block the culvert under the driveway, so I got to go out there and clear some of them before that happened. As the day progressed, the rain lightened up, but kept coming down steady all day. The temperature kept dropping, and the wind started blowing harder and harder. By the time it got to be night, it was really howling, and it did not let up all night.
Lou and I woke up this morning to a house that was on the cool side because the wind had blown out the pilot light on the furnace. I attempted to get it lite again, but with no success. It had happened years ago, and I remember that I had lite it at that time, but I had forgotten what the sequence was for doing it. Hey, I’m old and do forget about some things. Anyhow, Lou called Royce for some help. After some experimenting, we got it figured out. It helps when you read the directions. It also helps when you are able to read the directions. (They do not print them in large print.) The furnace now works fine again. We also got a preview of what snow looks like this morning. Nothing serious, but a peek. With all this sort of activity, it is time to give some serious thought to the application of long handles to the body. YOU BETCHA !!!!
In my last post I was telling about the rain storm and high winds and the wind blowing out the pilot light on the furnace. Prior to that, I had started a project in my garage. The chimney on the wood stove in there had gotten bad enough that it was time to replace it. I had bought a couple of lengths of stove pipe to take care of it. Larry and Linda had come over from Minneapolis to spend the weekend with us, so I conned Larry in to helping me with that project. There was a problem with the fit where the pipes connected up by the roof, and in the process I broke the top part of the chimney loose from the roof. This left a nice fresh air opening up there which is not a good situation. Since I no longer look forward to getting up on the roof, I asked Dan Owens come over and take a look at it to see what was needed to repair it. He ordered the necessary parts and picked them up and planned to do the job the next week. Those plans went by the wayside because when the time came, he got sick. Shortly after that, we had the storm—–needless to say, a little water got into the garage. After Dan recovered, he came over and did a nice job on my new chimney. Before he put the new cap on the chimney, he looked down there and remarked that he saw himself looking back up at him. Seems that there was water in the stove. Sure enough, when I opened the stove door, I saw that the stove was full. When I got around to it, I bailed almost six gallons out of there. Fires burn much better in there now !!!!
I had also been having a problem with the electricity in the garage for a lot of the summer and fall. With the help of my good friend Pastor Marvin Wilber and a couple sessions with his test equipment we finally got that situation straightened out. It’s great to turn on the lights or the compressor without blowing fuses. There seems to be a lot of gripping about power bills by folks, but there sure is a lot of gripping when it is not available. I know that I sure miss it when you flip a switch and it is not there.
Thanks to Royce, my woodpile is in good shape. That high wind in that storm made a couple of my own trees available to add to the pile. Hey, our LORD is good——all the time.
Grace Palm on keyboard-- Mary Gerber singing
Thursday, Lou had a Dr. appointment with her Parkinson’s Dr. in Marshfield. Royce and Audrey were kind enough to drive us down there and back. It had snowed before the trip, but we had good roads to travel on down there and back.
Sunday afternoon was also filled with fellowship and music and singing. Ray and Sandy Gates, Arvis, Chris, and Robin Holland spent the afternoon with us. My guitars have not sounded so good for a long time. I always am so in awe of what Arvis and Ray can do with them. They are both members of the Praise Team at Northern Lights Church.
Arvis and Ray doing it !!
This is another one of those stories that arrive by e-mail that just have to be passed on. All you have to do is use your imagination.
Yesterday I was at my local COSTCO buying a large bag of Purina
Dog chow for my loyal pet, Biscuit, the Wonder Dog and was in the
Checkout line when woman behind me asked if I had a dog.
What did she think I had, an elephant? So since I’m retired and have
Little to do, on impulse I told her that no, I didn’t have a dog, I
Was starting the Purina Diet again.
I added that I probably shouldn’t, because I ended up in the hospital last time,
But that I’d lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes
Coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.
I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that
It works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat
One or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete so
It works well and I was going to try it again. (I have to mention here that
Practically everyone in line was now enthralled with my story.)
Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the
Dog food poisoned me. I told her no, I stepped off a curb to sniff an
Irish Setter’s butt and a car hit us both.
I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack he was
Laughing so hard. Costco won’t let me shop there anymore.
Better watch what you ask retired people. They have all the time in the
World to think of crazy things to say. Forward this (especially) to all
Your retired friends……it will be their Laugh for the day..
It’s hard to believe that time can go by so fast. I seem to have more than my share of that problem. It is not that there hasn’t been anything to post on here. It’s just the opposite. There have been so many things going on that I now am having a problem remembering them. We’ll give it a try.
First, I never cease to be amazed at this world of cyberspace and all that is possible these days. I recently got an e-mail from a person whose name was not familiar to me. The lady inquired about my sister Betty (who had passed away several years ago). Turns out that she was from Side Lake and had played and ridden horses with Betty up there. When I asked her how she had gotten my e-mail address, she said that she had gotten it from one of the other girls from Side Lake who had read my book. I had sent it to her Mother because she was a friend and part of my story. After more e-mails, we are reconnected through e-mail and Facebook and doing a little catch-up that spans sixty some years. I find it very neat to be able to do that, like find out what has happened in their lives, see some of their pictures, etc.
One of the next things to help keep me busy was that I had a problem with my computer. Turned it on one day, and discovered that there was no sound. After two sessions with the Dell technitions it was decided that one of the ports on the back was really a high definition digital port and I needed a different kind of speakers which I ordered. Don’t remember just how long it took for them to get here, but when they did and I hooked them up,……they didn’t work either. Back to the technitions again. This time they decided that it was possibly a problem with the motherboard. They ordered a new one and made an appointment to have one of their guys come out to the house and change it. When that go all coordinated and he made the change,…….I have sound again !!!
Had a couple more interesting incidents here at the house too. Got up one morning to find that we did not have any hot water. I checked the circuit breaker for the hot water heater and it appeared to be O.K. Several people were notified of the situation and we were in the process of finding out what had happened to it. The day got away from us before that happened. During this time, there were many prayers going up for our water problem. We never did find out what had happened, but when I turned the hot water faucet on the next morning,……there was hot water coming out. THANK YOU JESUS !!!! It is still working fine.
The next thing to happen was with the TV. It started to act up and was acting like it was loosing the satelite signal. It kept getting worse and worse till I called the service technitions about it. We made and appointment and had a fellow (name of Troy) out on that. He did his tests and decided that we needed a new box for that and changed that out. Everything was working fine when he left, but later that evening it started to act up again. So—back to the phone again. It took some time before he was able to get back to us again. When he did, there was another box change. This time everthing seems to be fixed. Another THANK YOU JESUS !!!!
And I’m not sure how all this got started. I know that I did not ask the Lord for patience, but He saw to it that we got a little practice anyhow.
Just looked and see that I only had one post and that was on the first of January and then I guess that writers block set in, so I only had that one, —so, now I get to try to remember what happened. I had mentioned in one of my earlier posts that we woke up one morning and discovered that we did not have any hot water. At that time, it started working again before we had any idea what was happening to it. – Well, it did it again, but this time it went off and stayed off. I called on my good friend Pastor Marvin for his electrical expertise. He ran all sorts of tests which seemed to be normal. After more testing, it was determined that there was a ground that was not quite right. To make a long story a little shorter, he did a sort of temporary fix for now and will get it done right as soon as the weather gets warmer.
With the aid of some coinsidences, all this new technology, a smart daughter, e-mail, Facebook, etc., have made contact with some of my dear friends from the past. I think this is great to be able to be able to catch up some on what is going on in each others lives.
This January in our part of Wisconsin has not been particularly bad this year. We’ve had enough snow that I have had to plow a couple of times–nothing unusual as far as low temperature is concerned. So far, nothing like the storms that have been tooting around in other parts of the country. The wood pile is holding out good, and we should have leftovers again this year. The pieces of wood in that last part of the pile are beginning to feel like part of the family they have been around so long. Royce has been kind enough to keep my porch supplied from the pile so that I only have to step out the door to replenish the wood supply in the house. What he can get done in ten minutes would take me at least an hour. This is really a blessing for me. Can’t say enough for good friends.
Another of my pastimes is watching the birds and squirrels at the feeder. Royce suggested that we might start attracting woodpeckers if we hung a bag of suet out there. Sure enough, it only took a couple of days for them to find it. Have had some of the smaller ones and one of the big pileated ones——you know, the ones that sound like a jack hammer out there somewhere in the woods. Have not been able to get a good picture of him yet, but will include what I have so far. Hey, it don’t take much to entertain some of us old folks.
I have to mention the big win for Green Bay last weekend. Lots of happy people in the state, and a lot of hooting and hollering to go with it. I recieved an e-mail last month concerning Aaron Rodgers and the kind of man he is. Have not seen anything on the news about much of anything on his background, but I think this is worth passing on.
Subject: AAron Rodgers Story
| Ed and Darla Rodgers raised their kids in a Christian home. Their life in Chico, California was centered around church, family, and sports. Ed, a local chiropractor, credits his wife for helping to raise their three sons in a proper way. “My boys are humble,” he said to a local paper, “and that’s what makes us most proud.” This Sunday, middle son, Aaron, will be on display with that humility, as he leads the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XLV against the Pittsburgh Steelers. In the Green Bay lockerroom, coaches and teammates know all about Aaron Rodgers leadership and quarterback skills. His arm strength has been described as “ridiculous.” His uncanny ability to find receivers and get the ball to them has made him the NFL all time career leader in passer rating at 98.4. But they also see the character that was developed at an early age.
“I grew up knowing what a stable relationship was by my parents example, and how it centered on Christ,” Rodgers says. “When our family had its ups and downs, I knew my parents relied on God for everything, and he always got us through the rough spots.” Until he was 17, Aaron says he went to church because his parents went to church. But about this time, he began to make some choices with his buddies that he knew were not right. It was then he rededicated his life to the Lord. “Ever since then,” he says, “I fall on my face and get back up, get on my knees and confess, and keep on trying to live for Jesus.” This would also describe his play. No one can question his toughness. After two concussions this year, Rodgers came back to lead the Packers to their first NFC championship since 1998. It hasn’t been an easy road for Rodgers. After three years as a backup quarterback, he was called on to take the place of the legendary Brett Favre, who had been the starting QB for the Pack since 1992. His steady play was largely overshadowed by Favre’s “unretirement” and subsequent trade to the New York Jets. Rodgers is used to being overlooked. After a fine high school career at Pleasant Valley High School, in Chico, he got exactly one Division 1 offer, and decided, instead, to go 30 miles down the road and play for Butte Community College in Oroville, CA, Here he led the the team to a 10-1 record and a #2 national ranking. After one year, he signed to play for the University of California, leading them to a #5 national ranking in 2004. In the 2005 NFL draft, the Packers made him their #1 pick overall. As a Christian, Aaron is a solid individual, but as one teammate said, “He will not stand on the bleachers and shout.” In fact, Aaron often quotes St. Francis of Assisi, who said, “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary, use words.” He often quotes his favorite Bible passage of Psalm 91:1-2. It reads “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.’” He may need that and more this Sunday night as he faces the onslaught of Troy Polamalu and the Steeler defense. But when it is all said and done, and the Lombardi trophy, named after the former Green Bay coach, is handed out to someone, Aaron Rodgers will walk away exemplifying the example of both his earthly and his heavenly Father. “I try to live my life in a way that reflects the Lord, he says. “I use that as a model as I relate to my friends and family, my teammates and coaches. I want them to see that I really love and care for them as individuals. I try to build relationships. I feel if you are not personally invested in the people you spend every day with, then you are missing out on building a relationship and wonderful life experiences. This is what I like about Jesus. Jesus is about relationships.” And you can be sure that somewhere in that massive stadium on Sunday night, Ed and Darla, and Luke and Jordan Rodgers will be proud of Aaron not just for what he does, but for who he is. |
It’s my pleasure to report that our social life improved dramatically on last Friday night. This part of Wisconsin is famous for the variety of places where you can go for fish fry. Well,—- our house was the site of one of them thanks to prior arrangements. Dan and Shirley picked up our meal from the cook at the tavern in Brill. We had the oven warmed up to bring the meal back up to heat. So, with all the combined help everything got set up for eight of us. We were blessed with the fellowship of Dan and Shirley, Royce and Audrey, Kathy O. and Bernice S. The fish was great, and so was the fellowship. God is good–All the time.
We have been hearing all last week that it was going to warm up this week. Well, it’s happening. Got up this morning and the thermometer looked to me like it was reading 40 degrees above. After a quick check of my icicle crop and found that they were starting to drip, I have now regained some faith in our weather service. Later on in the afternoon, I took the liberty of cleaning the snow and ice off my porch. So nice to go outside for a while and not freeze. I’m ready for it all to melt and run down the hill.
I guess another noteable happening today was another visit from the pileated woodpecker. This time he posed for me a little better than the last time.
Our niece Johnia and nephew Chris blessed us with there presence for a while Sunday afternoon. It’s always nice to be able to spend a little time with family members and catch up with the goings on in each others lives. When Johnia called before they came over, she asked if it would be all right if she brought one of her pups over with her when she came. I told her that it was OK with me, and I didn’t think that Josie would eat her. The one that she brought over was a five month old female Sheltie.– (I think) She raises them. Well, Josie didn’t eat her, and she made herself right at home under Lou’s feet. Pretty baby !!
She made herself right at home
The weather has continued on in its warm trend which I think pleases everyone. I know it does me. However, it does creat some events that make you wonder—–What the heck was that !!!!! We have witnesses. Royce and Audrey and Lou and I were sitting at the kitchen table enjoying some coffee and goodies when all of a sudden we heard a loud noise, and the whole house shook and a picture fell off the wall. This happening was not totally unexpected by me. It was just a matter of when the ice dam on the roof was going to let go. It picked that time to do it. Audrey put the picture back where it belonged and we looked out the window at the ice. It is a good sized piece of ice and I suspect that it weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of five or six hundred pounds. It may by country out here, but we do have our moments. Picture below.
Ice dam
Ice dam -- a different view
This is a clip of a little ride that I have fixed up for the squirrels. I have it so that I can put a corn cob on a wire on the top end and it is counterbalanced on the other end. In order for the squirrel to get at the corn cob, he must get out by the cob itself. As soon as he gets on, the cob starts to swing from his weight. Between the squirrels and the blue jays, they sometimes put on a show. This clip is fast and so is he. It was very foggy I had to do some guessing because he gets on and gets a kernel of corn and is gone in a couple of seconds. —— I could not get this clip on here the normal way, so am trying a different way. You have to click on this: HPIM3164.AVI [986.7KB] ————————————— I am finding that this way does not work either. The only way I have found so far is to include that link as an attachment to an e-mail. So, if you want to see it, you will have to ask me to send it to you that way. Sorry. GB
There was a rumor last Sunday that we might miss out on the last snowstorm.———–It didn’t happen. I suppose that we got about 8 inches of the stuff. I was blessed by Lucas Green plowing out our driveway and Royce doing some shovel work to clean up around here. I, along with a lot of other folks I’m sure hope that this might be the last one for this spring. The good thing is that I have seen water dripping off the roof again. The temerature has been getting just a little above 32 degrees during the day. I’m looking forward to the time when all that white stuff starts running down the hill.
Had a tom turkey wandering around in the yard two days in a row. I got a clip of him out by the picnic table, but I can’t load that onto this blog, however I got a picture of him out on the west side of the house, and I am including that.
Old Tom on the move
What can get much better than being surrounded by good Christian friends on a Sunday afternoon for food, fellowship and music ? — Well, that’s the way it worked. We were blessed with the company of Arvis and Chris Holland, Ray and Sandy Gates, Royce and Audrey Zesiger, David Warner, and later on by Mary Halsey and Avis Slattery. Through the efforts of these aformentioned women, there was enough tasty food to satisfy everyone’s appetite plus lots of leftovers. (Much of which wound up in our refrigerator). After our lunch, Ray led a discussion of Pastor Tim’s sermon that morning, which everyone enjoyed. After Lou figured that Ray had (Preached) long enough, she started yelling that it was time to sing. — So we got Arvis and Ray started. I got to play with them too. It is so great to get with those two. They cover up all the clinkers that I include.
Ray Gates and his twelve stringArvis Holland making my Guild sound good
Audrey and Royce
Me looking like I'm contributing
Chris Holland and David Warner
Lou Burgan
This will be the third time to try to get pictures of last Sunday on here of Ray, Arvis, and me doing some picking. Refer back to the post of March 1 to see the original of that day.
Ray Gates and his twelve string
Arvis Holland making my Guild sound good
Me helping out a little
Audrey and Royce Zesiger
Chris Holland and David Warner
The better half - Lou Burgan
Some time last week I started in with a cough. Didn’t feel like I was getting a cold, but it persisted to the point got worse and worse untill that bossy wife of mine insisted that I make a doctor appointment. That did not happen until I got to feeling sick enough to be almost usless. Royce drove me to Rice Lake for the appointment yesterday. I saw the Dr. and got all drugged up and had a couple of x-rays. With many prayers and well wishes, I think I’m on the road to recovery.
Now then, just because I was not feeling well does not mean that everything had to come to a complete stop. This country life does present a little exitment from time to time. I have been feeding the birds and squirrels most of the winter. Recently, Royce had provided some suet to hang out there for the benefit of woodpeckers. It had attracted one of the pileated ones, and many of the smaller ones. This was much fun watching them until one morning, we found the suet on the ground thanks to one of the local raccoons. Royce set his trap out there for him, and then hung some more suet on the tree. Well, the coon ignored the trap and went for the suet on the tree. That was the end of the suet and the woodpeckers.
On Sunday night, I looked out my front window and saw that my bird feeder had a different look to it. It was full of raccoon. I got the gun and proceeded to try to get out the front door without being heard. That didn’t work with the door squeeking a little, and Josie trying to get out too. Anyhow, the coon took notice, and climbed up one of the trees over the bird feeder. When I shinned the big light on him, he must have lost his footing and fell out of the tree. On his way down, he managed to break the roof off of the bird feeder. Josie was waiting for him at the bottom and they went a couple rounds before the coon got back up in the tree. When he came down the next time, the excitment was over for the night, and I thought my coon problem was over. – Not so. On Tuesday evening about 9:30 I happened to look out the window as I was putting a stick of wood in the stove — there was that same full look again. When Josie and I went out, he took off up into the top of one of the other trees out there. To make a long story a little shorter, he was on the other side of the tree, and by the time I got my light set up, the battery got to low to be of any use so I gave up for the night. I did leave Josie out there on guard duty assuming that she would keep him up there. I heard her barking early in the morning, but she sounded like she was off a ways, so I figured that the coon had gotten down somehow, and just dismissed him. Shouldn’t have done that. Later on that morning I looked out the window and — there was that coon backing down the tree. I went out and sent him back up the tree. It is much easier to see where I’m shooting in the daytime, and Royce and Grandson “Zack” had another carcass to dispose of.
As an afterthought, Starting your varmint hunting from your front window is hard to beat !!!
There is a question as to the status of which season is lurking around. Folks, including myself keep going around saying things like, – “Hey, the sun is shinning”, “Hey, it’s snowing again”, “Hey, it’s raining”, “Boy, it’s melting good today”. Well, we are getting a good variety so we shouldn’t get bored. At least the “Cabin Fever” symptoms don’t last long this time of year.
I do thank GOD for this computer and some of the things that come across here. Last week I got an e-mail from a lady that gave me some information on some of my ancestors that I was not aware of which was quite a surprise. Also the link to a site with all sorts of information for anyone who is interested in working on their own family tree. The site for it is: www.WeRelate.org It is a free site, so, if interested,–go for it.
Also, I got another e-mail today which I’ll pass on. I give this fellow and his song a big thumbs up. I think he has “Nailed it.
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He’ll make more money when this song becomes a big hit than he would teaching school.
Tennessee middle school assistant football coach, age 26, fired for a song he wrote and played!!!
When you go to the link for the song, there are a couple of sites that give the news on the firing. This could be the next number one hit country song. It’s the best effort yet at encapsulating the outrage at the oversteps of this government in an entertaining song . Apparently the guy was fired over the song because some parents complained. Shameful if it´s true. If you like it, help it go “viral” by passing it along to everyone you know.
Click Below for Great Song!!!
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The first one was from our beautiful daughter Brenda who came in from Connecticut to spend some time with us old folks over Easter. Part of the time spent with her was taken up playing catch-up on what all is going on with the rest of the family members. Another part of the time was spent keeping her busy cooking. As usual, Lou and I appreciated her talents in that department. There were shopping trips to Hayward, and Rice Lake. It is always such fun to get out and mingle with the folks at the Walmart Stores !!! There was another high point for Lou during this time also. We had a game of (May I) one evening with Royce and Audrey, and she won that. Really nothing unusual about that. She might be a little on the puny side, but at cards, she shows no mercy.
Needless to say, the time went to fast before Brenda had to leave. She got here on Wednesday afternoon, and had to leave on Monday morning. Our prayers were answered and she had good trips coming and going. Thank you Lord.
Our next visit occured some time early on Tuesday morning. I didn’t get to see who it was, but I have a pretty good idea who the visitor was. Josie (our dog) got me up about 5:oo A.M. and wanted to go out. She didn’t act like she wanted to come back in so since it was nice out, I left her out and went back to bed. A little later I heard her barking and moving around out there. When I got up and it was light, I looked out to see that my bird feeder had been knocked over and the garbage can with the corn in it was laying on its side. The can was mashed down and the lid didn’t fit any more. I have had coon problems out there at the feeder before, but I think that this critter was bigger and black.
I know that it has been a long time since I have added anything to the “Shanty”, but like I said before, I’ve been busy, and sort of dry as far as writing anything. That does not mean that there was nothing to write about. It’s just me making excuses for myself. If this sounds like I’m whining, I guess I am. — ANYHOW –
Now I find that summer is almost over and I still don’t have things the way I would like to have them in my yard. Probably never will have that happen. I do appreciate the fact that we have friends that are more than willing to help with some of the things that I need done around here. I can still get out there and do a few things myself to help the looks of the place, but help is always welcome.
Niece Linda and her husband Larry were here around Memorial Day and helped clean up the yard some with their leaf blower and picking up sticks and branches that have accumulated out there. There were lots of them, and it makes a huge difference to be able to see the bare ground. Recently Royce and Audrey let me know that they wanted to stain my deck, so we got all the necessaries and got that done. Earlier, Royce had been over here with his chainsaw and cut up and stacked some of the dead trees out in the woods. Larry and Linda were here again over Labor Day weekend. Larry and I took the skidder out there and picked up all that wood and brought it in by my woodpile. (The rack that I made to fit on the skidder blade works like a charm for hauling that stuff out of the woods.) Royce has been seen splitting some of that up for me as time allows for him. He is also adding to my woodpile with loads from his pile from time to time. I think that I owe for about five loads so far, but will get that squared away when we get the pile to the right size. I have been using my favorite tool all summer (the weed trimmer) to keep the yard looking decent. The weeds grow almost faster than I can keep up with them. This is what is known as JOB SECURITY.
Some of the other visitors that we have been blessed with this summer have been my brother Jim and his son Alan. What a nice surprise there to have them drive up one afternoon at the end of their trip from Wyoming. It’s been a long time, and a chance to play catch-up for all of us.
Our friends Jack and Sandy from Thorp in his pride and joy (a 1956 Ford that he has rebuilt.) Jack was my partner in crime when we were escorting wide loads (Modular houses) around Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois. Always a good time with them.
And most recently, Joe McDowell, and old and dear friend from high school and motorcycle days. Another tough old guy. Up here to ride the fat tire bicycle race up by Cable. Needless to say, but he is in the old timers class. I knew some of this, but he has had open heart surgery and two hip implants. Hard to keep a good man down for long.
The summer has also provided us with our share of opportunities to socialize with a few of the doctors, dentists, and pharmacists in our area. Don’t know what we would do without them.
Now, since I did not take any notes to help my memory on past happenings around here, I will just have to wing it. I remember calling on my good friend Pastor Marvin Wilbur to solve an electrical problem that had been causing problems with our hot water heating system. He cured that problem.
Since my long term memory is faulty, I will start in with one of the more recent events in the goings on around the “Shanty”. I suppose that this one could be counted toward my ongoing education. Seems like there are always opportunities cropping up for us seasoned citizens to learn something, and this one went like this, and I will tell you how this all came about.
I have been thinking to myself about all the great strides that I have seen made in the world of technology and communications in my lifetime. When I was a boy, the telephone system consisted of the old telephones in a large oak box with a crank handle on the side that you used to crank out a combination of long and short rings. Anyone could listen in to the conversation whether it was for them or not. For some, it was a wonderful way to gather gossip. Back in those days, the TELEPHONE LINES were attached to glass insulators on the telephone poles.
There have been a constant stream of improvements over the years to the point where most folks have a cell phone on their person at all times, and these phones also do all sorts of other functions. Me being one of the seasoned citizens, I don’t even pretend to understand all of these uses. Besides, we don’t have good reception in this area, so I haven’t gotten involved much in cell phones.
However,—–I have just been treated to a lesson in one of the recent improvements, and how it came about in our lives. I guess that the main reason was that my wife had a birthday, and I had been wondering what to get her for a present. She has been having problems with her eyesight, and reading had been a problem for her for some time. I had been asking questions about Amazon’s “Kindle” and some of the benefits with that. With a “Kindle”, there are thousands of books, booklets, newspapers, etc. that can be purchased and downloaded to it. I was interested in something where you could enlarge the print size on whatever you were reading, and when I found that you could, I decided to get her one for her birthday, and so, started my lesson.
I had been asking around about Kindles and was told that there were different models of them, and the one that I should get was the Wi-Fi one, and even though it was wireless, I could download e-books to my computer and then download them to the Kindle by USB cable. Sounded good to me, so I bought one and presented it to my wife on her birthday. O.K. now all I had to do was start figuring out how to get it working. After asking more questions and a whole lot of trial and error, I did manage to get several books onto the Kindle. There was only one major problem. The books would not open. This led to another round of questions to find out why this was happening. Eventually I wound up talking to one of the technicians who provided support for the Kindles. Turns out that the books had to be downloaded wirelessly, and I needed to find some place who had wireless capability. After a bit of research, I decided that the library in Rice Lake was the place to go for that.
I made the trip to Rice Lake and related my problem to the receptionist there at the library. I was fortunate to find that this kind lady new exactly what the problem was, and what to do about it. Seems that this happens when books are downloaded to the computer and then downloaded to the Kindle by USB cable, they will not open with the WI-FI Kindle’s. Since the Kindle is the WI-FI model, the books must be downloaded wirelessly. — So, the procedure now is to remove the items from the Kindle and then download them again wirelessly there through their router. — Nothing to it when you know what you are doing. The necessary removal’s and re-downloads were done for me, and I thanked the lady and made the trip home with something on there that Lou could actually read.
After some more thought, I concluded that it would not be to practical to have to go to Rice Lake every time that I wanted to buy a Kindle book to be able to get it to work, so, the next sensible thing to find out was, what would it take to get myself set up for wireless capability. More questions along those lines, and as usual, each one of these has a habit of giving birth to more. I was fortunate in asking the right person, (Shirley Owens), who just happened to know who could and would help me out with this. I contacted this person, and learned that he could order the router that I needed, and then get me set up whenever it arrived. We made the arrangements and within about a week I was setup wirelessly. It is great to have all these aforementioned resources available and be able to have most any of them on the Kindle within two or three minutes.
These old folks are doing our best to try to catch up to a little bit of the new technology in this old world today. Such fun !!!!
Had a dandy storm the other night. Lots of lightning, thunder and rain. Have heard of reports of flooding in parts of Wisconsin. Have heard that we got maybe four or five inches of rain in this area. My little dry wash was running pretty good this morning. Not to much light when I took the picture, but will give you some idea of what it looked like.
Looking up the hill above culvert under driveway
It has been while again since I have posted on here, and I am posting on a different computer to see what happens. Brenda and Ivan got me this laptop at Christmas, and I have been busy getting familiar with my new toy. So far, I have transferred some files from my desktop. I have Skype on here, and on the desktop. The other day, I downloaded the software for the camera that I set up on the desktop to this one. I figured that I would have a lot more versatility in being able to make videos this way, since I am able to have the camera in a different place than the laptop. — Such fun!!!
I also have ordered a wireless keyboard for the laptop. Should be easier to type that way. The laptop keyboard works, but typing on it is to slow to suit me. Does that sound like I’m bragging a little?
Anyhow, for my own information, I wanted to see that posting to my blog on here works all right.
