It Smells Like 'Grandma's House'

And what a good smell it is.....the aroma of cinnamon, cloves, sugar and apples cooking. Today is another rainy cloudy day and a great day to make apple butter and can it. After the apple butter is canned I am going to give apple sauce a shot. The only bad part is that the wonderful smells make me want to eat eat eat!

Peak color time has come and gone up here but there is some color remaining and David and I took a drive to see what we could find.

Lots of yellow in them there trees.
Color and bridge nicely reflected.Peeko's ears 'flapin in the wind'We have had some unusually wet weather which makes great ground for mushrooms. These two specimens were on our hillside.
Projects always projects...David does keep me busy. It is usually lots of work but always fun. We decided to lay sod in our front yard. A small area but it does look nice...and keeps the dogs from getting their feet so full of sand and clay!

Before....Kel he had to pop in the picture to make it look like he was doing physical work and not just running the bob cat....like you believe that...I bet not.

And after. Go figure the bob broke down so while David spent at least two hours in town getting it fixed...I laid most of this sod...OK we had half done before the bob fell apart but I did lay lots on my own and could feel it the next day! The sandy round area that Tack is on is going to be the fire pit area.
Speaking of Grandma's house here I am David and I and Julia Bernice.
It's no wonder that I am the one behind the camera...I don't do well in front of it...LOL

Julia and her Momma and Dad
Little Julia at almost 2 weeks old. I think she is in the cradle that her grandpa Dave made for her right Kel and Len?
And Julia in the spirit of the time of year...this one's for you Jan. Now we only have to make sure that she grows up to vote correctly!!
Here is Abigail Rose (photo sent to us by her parents Ry and Jen) who is now a month old!
And Dezbah Daisy taken at a Native American Festival that she attended with her mom and dad. She is held by one of the singers at the festival.
Hey I have found a couple of yarn shops one is in Brainerd about an hour away and the other is in Park Rapids which is 50 minutes away. They are both great shops with friendly people just too bad that they aren't closer. I actually drug David into the one in Park Rapids yesterday...he so enjoyed it...not. I very happily shopped and he sat and talked with the shop owner. I now have about 6 projects going. I guess the yarn shops are dangerous places for me to go....

Down South

Well not southern US but southern MN.

Our friends and former neighbors asked if we would house and dog sit while they took a little trip. It gave us the opportunity to see friends and family and of course that newest grand baby.

Our duties consisted of keeping 5 dogs entertained and well fed. Yup 5 dogs in one spot. Our two and Chrissy and Brent's three.The four little ones seem to like David quite a bit.....
Is it him or the food that he happened to be holding do we think?
We took daily walks the dogs and I down by the river and other former favorite places. This day it is myself, my friend Mary and 6 dogs. Little Harley seems to be confused...he's going the wrong way!We spotted these interesting grouped mushrooms in the woods.And we spent time with little Julia Bernice who is almost two weeks old...will be two weeks old tomorrow! I was playing with my camera and thought this made an interesting picture.Our friends Mark and Lorree put this up on their station after Julia was born.A good one for her baby book. Wonder what the gas prices will be when she has her own little ones?

We spent some time with the oldest grand baby Dezbah who is growing like a weed. And time with our friends Mikey and Jan. David and Mikey went fishing on three occasions and for some reason or another I didn't get a meal of fish out of it.....could be that they got skunked. Speaking of getting skunked...Mikey didn't you skunk David in cribbage as well?

Welcome To The World

After a long day, and on her birthday...Kelly gave birth to Julia Bernice. I say one shouldn't have to work so hard on her birthday but I am guessing that she thinks it was all worth it.

Let's see if I can get the sequence of events straight. And I will post pictures along the way...

September 23rd is Kelly's birthday and her due day. She was scheduled to be induced at 6am yesterday (the 23rd) but as I suspected Julia Bernice came into this world in her own way and on her own timeline.

At 1am that morning Kelly began to have contractions. I received a text from Len at 4am telling me that they were on their way to the hospital. At 6am she had progressed in her journey and if it continued to go as such we were to have a little girl by around 8am. 8am came and went and no little girl although Kel was comfortable and doing well as I could here her laughing in the background.

Lenny continued to give me text or voice updates until 1:00pm which was the last message that I received. 4:00 came and went and I figured well if something was amiss he would call me so I figured that they were busy. Little did I know.....the call that I got from Len and 4:30 was, "She's a whopper" I am afraid that I laughed out loud. Kelly is a petite itty bitty cute as hell gal and I just couldn't even imagine her giving birth to a large baby...where oh where is there room???

As it turns out , because the dilation process was just not progressing, and it had been a long day, they did a C section and Julia Bernice came into the world at 2:02pm weighing 8 pounds 8.3 ounces and is 21 1/2 inches long with lots of dark hair and bigger than her daddy was at birth. Kelly was and is a trooper and is doing very well and of course Lenny is a proud and happy poppa. She is really not a 'whopper' but I think she is bigger than even Lenny expected.

Is she not perfect?Trying to talk already..or perhaps boss her daddy around? Oh no it's just a yawn. However, I can't wait for the day that she does boss her dad around...LOLLook familiar?

26 years ago (OMG he looks crabby doesn't he??)And 26 years later

Lenny changing his very first diaper (and oh my it was a mess) getting helpful hints from Kel's mom Sherry.

Well now David and I have three to spoil and love. Life is good.
More pictures and updates to come (ya think????duhh huh)

The Change Begins

Peeko and I took a leisurely walk through our woods a day or so ago looking for some color. The leaves had just begun to turn.

A brilliant orange

Green turning to red

Some of the wild flowers in our patch. They are beautiful and seem to 'pop' right out at you.

Sharing the pollen

As always when we go somewhere we are watching for deer. This fella stood quite nicely as I snapped away.

He and his doe.
This weekend begins the Fall Festival in our little town. No better way to see the start of fall than from the air....so David and I took a wonderful ride in a little plane that was set up for the festival. Now I am the gal that does not even look out the window of big planes when we are going to Mexico...but somehow it just seemed right to do this today. I was so impressed that I couldn't even listen to what the other's were talking about...I just looked out of the window with my mouth hanging open. I did manage to take a few pictures although didn't take the time to adjust any of the camera settings so you get what you get.

Our plane

Our 'plane mates' were a 91 year young lady and her niece (who happens to work in my new dental office...the niece not the 91 year old!). Every year they go on a mystery tour. The niece surprises her aunt with an interesting day trip and no one (except the niece) knows where they will end up. How fun huh?


And our 'backseat driver'.


The colors from the air

And flying over our place...it looks pretty nice from the air

Our colored woods...much more color than the other day.
Our plane landing with it's passengers before us

Our fabulous pilot.

Grandma's report

Abigail Rose is 2 weeks old...hard to believe that it has been 2 weeks already

Kelly is still hanging in there. Julia Bernice is part Grunst and you know they do things their way.....she will come when she is good and ready I suspect.

I Know What You Guys Are Saying....

Lenny is saying....'Are you f------ kidding me?', Ryan is shaking his head in disbelief, Rachel is giggling and Mikey and Jan are laughing out loud thinking we have totally lost our minds now! My friend Mary is thinking that she really has rubbed off on me...and yes she has.



Picture this. Ma and Pa Kettle on their work horsed pulling a two bottom plow and a disk er. Gotta get the soil ready for plantin ya know.



Well we don't have work horses YET but yup we have a two bottom plow and a disk er. Went to an auction and purchased these two antiques for next to nothing.



Our little jeep will pull these two through the 'field' very nicely. We are going to plant sweet corn, potatoes and who knows what else! At $6 a dozen it pays to grow our own corn!

And Kelly L you are right (cuz I know you are thinking this) David will be the one in the jeep and I will be the one doing any raking that needs to be done and all of the planting, weeding and watering, in other words all of the physical work as usual!

Today I tried my hand at canning beets and am about to make up my bread and butter pickles.


Grandma's update-

Abigail Rose, Ry and Jen are settling into parenthood and enjoying themselves.


Kelly has had a lot of pressure this past week and has not been able to sleep. Today she is almost fully effaced and is dilated to 2. What do you think Jen, how long will she go?

Stand Up 2 Cancer

I started crying at 7:00pm and laughed and cried during the entire show. This collaboration was incredible just that Katie Couric and crew were able to put this together. I hope that some of you were able to tune in. If not I of course have attached the link...and feel free to make a donation....I can't even imagine how much money they raised during the show.
https://www.standup2cancer.org/donate_splash.asp
Melissa Etheridge performed.....the day that I got the call from wonderful Doc D saying...you have breast cancer.....that night Melissa had a concert special on TV (October is BC month) for breast cancer. I have never been a fan of hers but listened to her entire concert that night and cried wondering what the hell. As it turned out that concert allowed me to 'cry it out' and from that night on I FOUGHT.

Here are the words that gave me the strength that I needed. The highlighted words are the ones that truly gave me strength.

(Melissa Etheridge)
It's been years since they told her about it
The darkness her body possessed
And the scars are still there in the mirror
Everyday that she gets herself dressed
Though the pain is miles and miles behind her
And the fear is now a docile beast
If you ask her why she is still running
She'll tell you it makes her complete
[Chorus:]
I run for hope
I run to feel
I run for the truth
For all that is real
I run for your mother, your sister, your wife
I run for you and me, my friend
I run for life
It's a blur since they told me about it
How the darkness had taken its toll
And they cut into my skin and they cut into my body
But they will never get a piece of my soul
And now I'm still learning the lesson
To awake when I hear the call
And if you ask me why I am still running
I'll tell you I run for us all
[Chorus:]
I run for hope
I run to feel
I run for the truth
For all that is real
I run for your mother your sister your wife
I run for you and me my friend
I run for life
And someday if they tell you about it
If the darkness knocks on your door
Remember her remember me
We will be running as we have before
Running for answers
Running for more
I run for hope
I run to feel
I run for the truth
For all that is real
I run for your mother, your sister, your wife
I run for you and me my friend
I run for hope
I run to feel
I run for the truth
For all that is real
I run for your mother your sister, your daughter, your wife
For you and me my friend
I run for life
Ohohohoh
I run for your mother your sister your wife
I run for you and me my friend
I run for life

We've Got One!!

Little Abigail Rose Woelpern was born at 6:44 this morning after almost four hours of labor. She weighs in at 6 pounds 11 ounces and has blond hair. Mom and baby are doing very well...daddy Ryan sounded like he is doing great too.

The Harvest Begins

Tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, beets, radishes, and peppers galore! Still to come is squash, more peppers and tomatoes, brussel sprouts and cabbage.

Most of my time has been spent in the kitchen teaching myself how to dehydrate veggies and blueberries, canning peaches, freezing sweetcorn and making salsa as well as pizza/spaghetti sauce. It has been fun.

The fruits of my labor.

Dehydrating has been interesting and I am not sure that I like the process as it takes way too long. Jerky is one thing but dehydrating berries and veggies (tomatoes, peppers and onions) seems to take forever. But they will all be good when the snow flies I am sure. My next project will be canning deer meat.

The weather has certainly taken a turn up here. We woke up yesterday am to hot and humid. An hour later the wind shifted and it is now chilly to say the least. We got much needed rain all day long however which produced this great rainbow that stretches from tree to tree.

It is September the month of the babies. Nope neither little girl has arrived yet and are not due for a few weeks but we are waiting........

Latest Visitors(oop just realized that I wrote this and meant to publish on the 19th of Aug but guess I didnt get it published so it is a tad late)

We had the pleasure of sharing our work in progress to a few visitors this past week/weekend. With gas and the economy as it is we know that it is not easy for people to drive long distances so it makes it even more appreciated when people are able to visit...and of course we are able to show our new home off!

Jess and Judy came for a few days. Jess has been around for the entire process...from the camper and no landscaping to now. We spent our time sitting by the campfire eating smores (after the appropriate roasting sticks were found) and just enjoying the company. And yes, Jess and David played cribbage. This time David took her two out of three. Gotta give it to him as he has been on a losing streak!

And the day that they left my aunt Etta and uncle Roger drove over. They have their camper at a seasonal site four hours from us so were very happy that they made the trek. They were out on a road trip with their friends Linda and Al. Etta and mom accompanied David and I on many trips and those times are cherished...and missed. So it was great to see them all.

And I have to say...congratulations Michael Phelps. Is he not a great athlete as well as a seemingly wonderful person!