What I Did On My Summer Vacation.

By Jodie Stoos, Woodland School 54th Grade

All right.  It's been 3 months since my last post.  I've decided to blame this fact on everyone and everything but myself.  That's the American Way...

Chapter 1:  Trusted Relatives Steal Entire Summer Month!

I don't know how it happened.  One day we were celebrating Mother's Day, the next thing we knew it was July 4th!  I'm afraid we're going to have to accept the unbelievable fact that friends and family we thought were trustworthy have made off  with a third of the summer.  And that's not all that's missing--I don't have a single picture of these happy gatherings!!  Where the hell did those go???

All right.  I know the answer to that one--I accidentally erased EVERY picture I had stored on my camera's memory card, taken during SIX wonderful visits from family and friends that occurred, mostly during June, to celebrate Mom's 80th birthday.  I can't believe I did that.  No pictures of Michael taking us to the Rail Trail Cafe for Mother's day.  No shots of Bob and Mary Clark (Norma's son and his wife) spending a weekend with us.  Nothing of the following weekend, when Lorrie and Greg were joined by Amy, Patrick and tiny little dog Mamba to celebrate the big occasion.  And not one shot of the Great Interstate Cousins' Club Meeting!  I can't believe I lost those.  I had a great picture of our little living room reaching maximum capacity when Aunt Nancy, Cousins Barb, Jean, Melissa and Pam (also Lily and Sheridan, Melissa and Pam's girls) all made it up for a long weekend of partying.  I had pictures of Pam forcing me to walk uphill, which she does every time we get together (it's the only exercise I ever get).  I even had a picture of Nancy taking a picture of me taking a picture of her. (Come to think of it, I have a similar shot of Melissa and I photographing each other at the airport the day we left for Sweden.  Must be an Olufs thing.)  And I have no pictures of Jeanni and Chris Bonine (Norma's granddaughter and husband) or Erica Mennerick (another of Norma's granddaughters who've adopted Mom) bringing the babies up to celebrate Great Grandma's 80th.

So, there is conveniently (for them) NO evidence whatsoever that these people were ever here stealing our gardening time.  I guess we'll have to forget prosecuting anyone and just be really happy they were here with us for the big event.  It was outrageous fun, and what we do have is a month's worth of wonderful memories to keep.  Thanks to everyone who made the trip up here, during what I know was a busy time for them, too.

The only image from June that survived my accidental camera purge.  I shot it (in July) to show Aunt Nancy where we planted the birthday rose bush she gave to Mom.  It's beside the little bench we put next to the clothes line, where Mom likes to sit and watch nature during summer chore time.

Chapter 2:  Tomatoes and Squash Overtake Ogema Acreage

Between the tortuously long winter and the month-long celebrations, we didn't get the garden in until really late this year.  It's going great, though!!  Nights are getting chilly already, though, and there have already been a couple of frost warnings for areas of the Northwoods that are near enough to make us nervous.

HELP!!!!  They're  heading for the house!!!  Run, Mom, run--you can't keep them at bay much longer!!!  Two types of squash and a half-dozen varieties of tomato head for Janette's house.

We had all these old tires around the barnyard and no time to put in another raised bed, so we decided to try raising potatoes this year, using the Old Tire Method.  As the plants grow, we add another tire and some peat moss.  We're up to 4 tires high already.  Hopefully, there are potatoes in there somewhere.   In the background are peppers and our broccoli, which we had to cage up to protect them from rabbits, which outnumber Ogemites by 6 to 1.

One of only two little melons that have made it so far.  Hope they make it to maturity.

Another experiment for this year--ground cherries.  The little lantern-shaped cover peels off and there's a pale orange berry inside that tastes weirdly like a cross between strawberries and tomatoes.  I've tasted quite a few and still can't decide if I like them or not.  I have a recipe for ground cherry coffeecake, though, that sounds good.  We shall see. 

OK, I'm going to have to stop here.  It's after 6 PM and the other 8 people in Ogema who have internet access must be online--pictures are loading reeeeeeaaaalllllyyy slowly.  I'll get to Chapter 3 in the next couple of days.  No, really....

It's Spring!!!

Yes!  Spring finally found the Northwoods for real, just before Mothers' Day last month.  All of the two- and four-legged folks at our place are breathing sighs of relief--even Bella seems to finally be in a good mood!

Snow is really pretty, but "green" is a great look, too!

Happy sheep!  Happy, happy horses!

Other signs of spring are popping up too.

More colors!  Goldfinches and a rose-breasted grosbeak provide a "sight for sore (or snow blind) eyes."

Another sure sign of spring around here!  Mom's moving a little slow (even for her) but she's feeling better every day.

Look who showed up for Mother's Day again--our friend the porcupine.  I think this is the third year he's appeared in the willow tree, only for a couple of days and only around Mother's Day.  Mom is convinced he's here visiting his own mother...

Of course, it's not all green around here.  Mud season has been in full swing for a couple of weeks, even when it was hiding under our early May snow.



The guy who comes to empty our septic tank got stuck after his truck slowly sank into the muck at the end of the driveway.  A new (to us)  neighbor, who lives a mile or so away, came with the biggest tractor I've ever seen to drag the truck out.  Then each went on his merry way, without making any attempt to deal with the 12" deep trench left behind.  This is the same guy who flattened our flagpole, leaving  Mom unable to fly her flags of the US and Sweden.  She is not amused.

Winter was pretty harsh on our roof.  This view is of the south roof, which covers my little office and our laundry room. All the dark shingles are curled up and loose.  It looks really bad but is still watertight.  It's going to have to be fixed soon, though.  Sigh.  It's always something:

I keep forgetting to introduce you all to Bandit, Mom's new dog.  She is a real sweetheart, smart as a whip and very loving:    

Mom is the happiest she's been since Rex died.  And Bandit seems to be a  happy camper, having her very own bed in her very own living room!

Can't possibly be comfortable, but they both look sweet, don't they?

It occurred to me the other day that I only ever seem to talk about the weather and the animals.  How boring!  I will try to add something more interesting from time to time.  For now, though, I think I'll end this post--it's well after 2 AM and I'm finally sleepy.  We'll be back, though!

We Are Not Amused.

To begin this entry, I think I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves:

April 24:  37 degrees, 2" of snow, Angry Birds

April 27th:  80 degrees, 2" of water, 4" of mud.  This handsome horse was at a training clinic Janette and I attended on Saturday.  I didn't take Bella, just watched others.  I learned a lot, though.

May 2:  34 degrees,  6" of snow, 1/2" of ice,  4" of mud; beautiful, though.

Gotta love spring in Wisconsin.  The poor birds are really confused--below is a pair of goldfinches, the male in full mating colors, trying to make the best of lousy honeymoon weather:

At least there's a free breakfast bar...

I can't joke too much about it, though.  The animals are faring poorly.  There is still almost no grass on the ground, and the deer and bears are starving.  I've also heard a large, hungry coyote pack several nights in a row in the woods just behind the barn.  There have been reports of bears taking down livestock, which rarely happens in gentler springs; they prefer to gather forest foods that don't carry the risk of crossing paths with humankind.  I'm glad Mom insisted on expensive wire mesh fencing rather than the couple of strands of electric wire prevalent in the neighborhood.  Hungry predators just bounce off our fence instead of flattening it.  And, of course, I have Bella protecting the herd and she is NOT in a good mood these days!  I feel sorry for the barn people--they're shedding their winter coats and craving newly grown grass, and they are just as tired of this weather roller coaster as I am!  Fortunately, it's supposed to warm up again toward the end of the week, with temps once more reaching the 60s; we ought to have safer driving conditions for our May 9 trip to Wausau for Mom's PET scan, which will hopefully show minimal damage to her heart.  Then it will be onward, toward gardening season!  Weather permitting, of course...

We're Back...

Here we are, finally, more than a year after my last post.  There really wasn't much to report last year beyond "We went to the doctor today" and "my arm is still broken."  Not much else happened.  After falling and breaking my right arm in February, I had surgery and spent 10 months in a cast.  I wasn't allowed to use the arm at all during that time so I got very little accomplished.  I didn't even manage to accomplish the healing of the arm--my last visit with the orthopedic surgeon was toward the end of October, at which time she said, "Well, the arm still hasn't healed but we're not going to do any more with it.  Go ahead and use it normally."  I'm not really happy about that and got a second opinion in late December.  The orthopedic surgeon I consulted in Eau Claire said, of course, that the one here hadn't done anything right and he wanted to do all manner of alarming things to the bone, including scraping out the interior and inserting some foreign substance or other to stimulate bone growth.  I suppose I should have gone with his plan, but I just can't make myself schedule another operation right now.  There's so much that needs to be done, and all of it needs the use of two arms.  So I'm in limbo right now, using the arm as much as I can; I still have quite a bit of pain if I lift more than a gallon of milk with the arm outstretched, but I can carry near-normal amounts of weight if it's pointed downward.  One thing I've learned is that the fracture site never did heal the first time I broke it and the arm had only been held together by the metal plate I got in North Carolina.  That plate lasted 7 years, so I am hoping I'll get another 7 out of this one.  We'll see...

Mom had a good summer, building 4 more raised beds for the garden all by herself.  No small accomplishment!  She also planted, harvested and canned all the veggies herself last year.  Not bad for a soon-to-be 80-year-old!  Here are a few pictures of her handiwork:

She didn't do quite as well during the last quarter of the year, though.  In October she was admitted to the hospital in Medford for 5 days with pneumonia, and spend an additional 2 or 3 days there in November with a urinary tract infection.  It took her several months to recover from those illnesses, not really feeling herself until February of this year.  She's feeling pretty well these days, though, and is enjoying getting out and about in the world again.

We had very little rain last year and were forced to take the Barn People off the pasture early, in late September so they wouldn't destroy what little grass remained.  The poor things haven't seen the inside of their pasture since then, due to this extended winter we're having.  We had snow again last night and into the day today.  I had bought enough hay to last them until April 4th; more than enough, I thought at the time.  Who knew we would still have no grass growing on the 19th of the month?!  Everyone here is scrambling, trying to find hay this late in the season.  Of course, the demand is driving the price skyward; last fall we could buy a big round bale of hay, enough for about 10 days for our crowd, for about $40.  The price last week was $100-150!!!  Well, it can't last forever, can it?  Spring and summer can't hold off much longer, can they?

As April comes to a close, Cheeseheads across Wisconsin prepare for the spring planting season.
Mother Nature, however, has other ideas...

 This first blog after such a long absence has been hard to get going.  Now, though, I can finally move on and get back to my weekly writing, sharing our grand adventure with our family and friends.  Hope 2013 is a great year for all of us!

Well, for heaven's sake--all winter we've only had a few inches of snow fall at one time, and then on February 28th we get buried!  It started snowing at around 5:00 in the evening and was still coming down heavily this morning, as you can tell by the video below, which I took at about 6:30 a.m.  (At least I hope you can tell--this is the first time I've tried to add a video to one of my blogs.)

I shoveled (one-handed!) a narrow path down the deck,



But didn't even attempt to go any further.

Those little squares you see below, between the deck railing and the pine tree, are all that remains unburied of the 24" posts at the corners of the raised bed we built last summer, meaning we got about 20" of snow overnight!!

We were forewarned, though, and had gotten all of our doctor visits and errands done in advance.  Thanks to our neighbors the Barn People are well-provisioned and I only have to wade down to the barn once a day to refill their water tank and stuff them with grain.  They have plenty of hay, so I don't even really need to do the grain thing today, but you know me:  since I can't bring them inside where it's warm, I'll spoil them in some other way...

That's all the work I'm doing today, though.  It's a good day for a bowl of popcorn, a mug of hot chocolate and a good book:

My new popcorn popper, which I got for Christmas.  It makes horrible screeching sounds while it's working--makes you think someone is murdering a parrot!  It does make perfect popcorn, though.

So I'll spend a lazy day today.  Todd has kindly offered to come and cleared the drive for us, so we'll be able to get out if necessary before the next significant snowfall (predicted for Friday!). 

I have a feeling spring will be a bit late this year...

I Make a Fashion Statement, the Hard Way

This is the color Janette picked for her babushka:

No, her hair isn't that tall--the wind was blowing from behind her.

 This is the color she picked for her laptop:

This is the color she picked for the Fat Little Puppy's winter coat:

And this is the color she insisted upon for her sister's new cast:

Yep, I broke myself again, on February 10.  This time Bella had nothing to do with it; I slipped on a patch of ice in the driveway.  Broke the end of the radius (the bone on the thumb side of the arm) into several pieces AND fractured the titanium plate that they had screwed onto the ulna (pinkie-side bone) in 2005.  I had to do some fast talking (as did my church's prayer group!) to get them to consider trying a cast instead of going straight to surgery, but the x-rays I had last Tuesday showed that the gamble had paid off and everything is looking good so far.  Another 4 weeks in the cast and we'll know for sure if this works.

Meanwhile, Mom and Janette have stepped right up, as have the neighbors, to fill in the gaps.  Fortunately, I had gotten all that experience using my left hand only, so I can still manage many chores.

Todd and Joanie from down the road brought a big bale of hay so I don't have to make so many trips to the barn every day.  The Barn People are happy as clams to be able to munch 24/7!

But quite a few plans for late winter/early spring are on hold now.  And my blog may not be updated too often--typing with one hand is a pain!

We Fought the Cat and the Cat Won

 What was supposed to be the simple task of clipping nails turned out to be quite the disaster last week!  We got through Mimi and Kruppa, the two half-wild former barn cats, without any trouble, which surprised both of us--Mimi is the one who lived in a hole in the sofa for the first 3 weeks we lived here, and Kruppa just ain't right.  Then I went and picked up sweet little Bones, who has never given me a minute's trouble and loves to be carried and cuddled.  To our complete astonishment, she turned into a fluffy, brown-and-black, razor-wielding Tasmanian Devil of a cat as soon as the first claw was clipped.  It was like trying to hang onto a tornado that had just passed through a knife shop.  We did not finish the task...

The slice on Mom's right hand was so deep it exposed 1/2 inch of tendon!

My injuries look worse here because they are longer and required more bandaging, but they were not as deep and I don't have such fragile skin.  The only reason I'm so bandaged up is that I needed to go clean the barn, and you don't enter a barn with open wounds.

Other than the claw-clipping debacle, things have been pretty quiet here.  For one thing, we've both been "under the weather."  Mom had a kidney infection that required a trip to the doctor and a round of antibiotics, and I had a 2-week flare-up brought on by the big temperature swings--from way freakin' below zero one week to melt-the-snow balmy (well, above 25 degrees) the next.   It's been hard for either of us to accomplish much; Mom's bedroom is still taped off so its ceiling can be painted and I still only have 4 sheets of wallpaper hung in my office.  Even when we're mostly home bound, though, life in the Northwoods still holds some pleasant surprises.  On a recent trip back from Janette's house (bringing her some Zantac--even she is not feeling well lately) we rounded the curve at the "oxbow" or "horseshoe bend" in the river and there were a mess of turkeys waiting on the mailman:



They all flew right over the hood of the truck, giving me a chance to catch a couple in mid-flight:

 

And ended up on the little wooded island, joining what must have been at least a hundred others:

While I'm a "wildlife pacifist," Mom always bemoans her lack of a shotgun at times like this...

And a couple of days ago, as we were on our happy way to Coumadin Clinic, we caught this picture:

A whole new take on "running down to the Kwik Trip."  We hope to travel to the Ogema One-Stop in the same manner someday.  Or even down to the Extra Innings tavern.  I wonder if you can be stopped for "drunk reining?"

Both incidents served as nice reminders of why we picked this area.  Even when we're forced to stay still and recuperate, there are beautiful things waiting to be discovered just outside.  We just need to be patient.