A Tale That Is So Not A Fable

Where do I begin. Perhaps about here...it's been raining for days up here, raining so badly that it is impossible to get in the garden, the ditches are full and everything is mud mud mud.
We just get back from the doctor where I found out that I have walking pneumonia and bronchitis. Rest and antibiotics and plenty of fluids is the RX. David who is still on crutches with that broken leg decides he is going outside to do something or another. I let the dogs outside and a bit later go check on them. Roscoe has slipped out of the gate and is gone. Did I mention that at the time it was raining, not drizzling but raining hard. You know, like it's been doing up here for days which is why everything is muddy.
Both David and I worried about Roscoe being in the woods in the rain and with the many predators. Next thing I know David hops on the lawnmower and in the woods he goes with it in hopes of finding the little rat. Did I mention that it was and has been raining and everything is mud mud mud?
A few minutes later I look out to see a soaking wet Roscoe at the gate waiting to be let in. Roscoe but no David. After drying Roscoe off I fear my suspicions are true, David has once again gotten the lawnmower stuck in the mud, did I mention that it has been raining for days?
I grab my rain coat (David hadn't bothered with one) intending to find David and the lawnmower and there he is crutching out of the woods wet and minus a lawnmower. What, it's stuck in the mud, really?
David decides that we take the bobcat down with a strap and pull the lawnmower out. I can see the handwriting on the wall but apparently he cannot. Did I mention that it had been and was raining and everything was mud mud mud?
Yep here is the lawnmower stuck in the mud. I hook the strap to the lawnmower and to the bob and David backs the bob up in an effort to un-stick the mower......uh huh


Alas it was not to be. It had been raining and everything was mud mud mud. My good ole bobcat tried to pull the mower but it sunk, oh did it sink in the mud.

David thinks that if I (who has pneumonia and bronchitis) just find some logs and put them under the tires he can then get the bob out....OK.... He finally gave up and got out of the bob.
Does it look like the logs helped? Nah
David decides that both machines will have to stay put until it dries up. I think there is a better chance that Noah's Ark will come first and float them out but hey, what do I know?
Yep a true story only at the Woelpern's.

Adaptations

Since David has been 'out of commission' we have had to make a few adaptations. For instance we had planned on siding the house and putting in new windows this spring. Needless to say our plans have been put on hold. And it has been an eye opener for me to really realize what having two able bodied people in the house means....and what David really does do around here. The simple things like letting the dogs in and out of the house. He can do this now but the first week he just couldn't really do anything. He still cannot take the garbage down to the end of the drive and bring them back, take his dirty plates to the sink, get his own water...etc etc etc. So yes it's been interesting and an eye opener.
Despite all of this I have been able to get a little gardening started. Good ole Mother Nature has kept me from doing more, her and of course my broken legged husband:)
The sedum garden has been cleaned out and is looking quite nice


And the hosta bed, I love my hosta bed. In a few weeks they will have grown a ton
Annuals in the pots
And in the front of the house. Only one of my three rose bushes made it through the winter.
This is my first bloomer of the season and it is gorgeous. I so wish I knew what it is...Mary oh Mary got any ideas?

The flowering trees look and smell wonderful
The one behind my new garden art windmill is a deep red
And then, because he needed something unloaded from his trailer, David taught me how to run the bobcat. Not only did I learn to run it but I'm pretty damned good at it if I do say so myself. Ummm Jess, I would say that is my bobcat face don't ya think?
My first bobcat project was to tear apart and move one raised vegetable bed. I then moved buckets of clay out and brought even more buckets of black dirt in to make a brand new flower area. I have yet to plant anything in it, it's been way too wet.
Once he started feeling better and the leg was less swollen David got antsy. Because he couldn't run a 'real' floor sander on our new living room floor he decided he could roll around on his side with his small hand sander and get her done. And get it done he did. Now he waits for me to clean it up and he says he is going to be able to put a coat of varnish on it...really????
Yep he even helped me put this gate in at the front door area. Under his tutelage I dug all of the poles in the ground, leveled and screwed them together. Here he is pre-drilling the screw holes for me.
We make a good pair the two of us. I said to him the other day, you really have to like one another to be able to live like we do. I wonder if he likes me enough to go buy his own bobcat since this one is now mine???

Mother's Day And A Potty Party??

Oh yah no more diapers is truly a reason to celebrate for sure and no better day than Mother's Day-just about the best present ever:) Kel made a deal with Julia-if she could go one week without wearing diapers she could have her very own potty party. Julia has been uncomfortable in diapers for a while now but just not motivated enough to do anything about it..this however was the carrot that worked! I set crippled Grandpa up with everything he needed at his fingertips and off I went to the party.
And what is a potty party without your very own, new and pretty cool looking undies. They even come rolled up and fastened with tape just like grandma's do.
And tacos in a bag

And balloons, Julia was promised her very own potty party balloons that she so graciously shared with her sister
And a potty party cake. Kel reports that the cake maker at the DQ got a good little haha when she told him what she wanted written on the cake. Grandma and Grandpa are pretty proud of our Julia Bernice Leonard!
Not to be forgotten our little Shelby playing Dora guitar with daddy
And just being her gorgeous little, easy to please, happy go lucky self

And because it is Mother's Day-
It is a day to cherish
A day to reflect
A day for a loved one
That you'll never forget

Her valuable lessons
Were taught with love
She is to be honored
When looking down from above

She is sure that she had
The best job ever
When times got tough
We could be found together

Yep that's my momma
About whom I write
I will always remember
Her bright shinning light.

Happy Mother's Day to a few special momma's in my life-
Momma Loi, my aunties Sandy and Etta and to three very good momma's who I am especially proud of- Kelly Jo, Jen and Rachel

Happy Mother's Day to you all and may you have potty parties too:)

A Birthday Is Just Another Day

For most people but my David is certainly not most people. On Monday-which was two days before his birthday- he was in the house on the ladder on the steps installing the trim on the windows. I was in the living room working on my new file cabinet (gee how fun does that sound) when I heard the most god awful kabang, a much bigger kabang than just the usual kabang of a nailer hitting the floor. In I ran to find poor David sitting/laying on the steps with his left leg still in the rung of the ladder that had fallen farther down the steps. Now David is always banging something, his head or a hand...well you know, and he very rarely feels pain. Oh wait there was that time that he almost cut his finger off, but I digress.... There he sat/layed on the steps, leg hung up in the ladder that had fallen as well, face as white as a sheet and beads of sweat all over that bald head and forehead. He had busted his watch that was laying on the floor and his hat flew off as well. He didn't fall far, only a couple of feet off the ladder but he twisted and hyper extended his leg which was the cause of his pain. It took quite a bit for him to untangle his leg from the ladder and to get up to a chair I had waiting for him at the top of the steps. It was no easy feat for him to hobble from there to the living room where he collected his thoughts for about an hour before we went to the ER.
We left it all as it fell...
And oh yeah he looks like a happy camper. He actually banged up both legs but the right was pretty superficial.


The ER doc did an initial exam as well as an xray. Exam caused David way too much pain but the xray showed nothing broken. We were to make an appointment with the the orthopedic PA so they could do their assessment but until then we got a brace like wrap to wear, elevate, ice and no weight bearing....really????
David looks a bit relieved here as he hobbled out of the ER. Relieved that nothing was broken and it is probably just a good/bad sprain/strain. I didn't have the heart to say to him, 'You are having way too much pain to have it be just that' Nah, let him feel OK about it all for now:)
That was Monday. Tuesday bright and early the ER doc calls me to tell us that when he looked at the Xray he saw some fluid in the knee area and would we come in to see the ortho doctor today? Off we went. Here he is in the position I am afraid he may be in a lot in the next few weeks. This is prior to the ortho doc coming in so he stills looks to be in an ok mood....

The ortho doc did his own very thorough exam and ordered an additional xray to be done of the entire lower leg...humm he is wondering is the fibula broken perhaps? Because, he says, there is way too much pain for it to be a strain...gee didn't I say that?
Oh yeah - he has a break of the fibula (small bone in the leg) however it is a clean break so no cast and no surgery needed...on that one. He is also suspicious that the tibia (big bone) may be cracked on top where it goes to the knee and does he have any internal stuff going on (muscles-tendons). So we will be having an MRI and CT to get a good look. Poor David now has an immobilizing brace on his left leg that he has to wear for 6-8 weeks and no weight bearing. That is it, so far, we shall see what the additional tests bring.
Now the ole boy is in a chair bored to tears...and the worst of it all is....he cannot get his boat out because there is stuff and more stuff in front of it. Not only can he not get the boat out but my lawnmower is back there as well. I swear I need to learn how to run that bobcat so that I can get stuff out of the way! If the boat was out at least we could go fishing. And of course he is bummed because he can't do any of the house projects. I keep telling him they will always be there. He says that's the problem.
Happy birthday to my poor David. This getting older isn't all it was cracked up to be.

Home Sweet Home

We rolled into Minnesota last Thursday and checked into the Mystic Lake Casino RV Park, needed to spend some time with the MN grand kids. BTW the RV Park at Mystic Lake is open year round...yep I said year round. Crazy huh? It is a great park however and close to Lenny and Kelly's which is the icing on the cake.

You cannot imagine how happy I was to see Julia walk out the door with her daddy and in a happy and very excited voice said, "Grandma". Julia, Shelby and their parents moved from Nicollet to Prior Lake April 1 and Julia was more than happy to show us her new house. She ran from room to room announcing, 'This is Shelby's room, and ' This is my bathroom' (she's two and even though it is her and Shelby's bathroom everything is hers and hers only), 'This is momma's and daddy's room, and then.......
This is my bedroom

It's a comfortable home large enough for a guest or two :) with neighbors who are younger with young kids of their own. There is even a babysitter next door! Lenny says that on about day two the next door neighbor girl (who is 8) knocked on their door at 8pm asking if Julia could come out and play. It will be great for the girls to have a neighborhood with kids next door...good luck keeping Julia in the house this summer, haha.

And here is Julia's almost always smiling little sister Shelby Maria. Is she not adorable.

I wondered if we could do something fun one day and because the weather was not nice enough for the MN Zoo we headed for Underwater World at MOA. Now Julia was a little (a lot) apprehensive about going in the dark tunnel surrounded by water as you can see. To heck with the cool fish daddy lets get out of here.
She was much happier when we found these 'pretty fish' and were no longer under the water.
Shelby on the other hand just took it all in
I loved it actually. How often do you get to see the underbelly of a swimming shark.
This was much more to Julia's liking.
And then Julia and Grandpa spending some quiet time watching Tangled. BTW the purple chair that Julia is sitting in is the one that I made her almost two years ago. It was a great project because she loves it:)
We came to our official-summer home Monday. Everything was in place, nothing amiss thank goodness. You know I had forgotten how slow the internet service is here in the woods and it has taken me forever to get this blog loaded!

David immediately busted into laying the wood floor in the new living room and I am STILL trying to find places for all that we took out of the camper and organize the house.

Happy Easter to you all.

Texas 2011

This was an interesting trip to say the least.
First and formost was our 5th grandchild was born. Aiden Micheal came into this world 2 weeks early and pretty effortless...I am sure due to the daily yoga that his momma does. Pregnancy may not be-and is not- easy for her but delivery consists of getting to the hospital in the nick of time!
Here he is only a few hours after he was born.
And with his proud, and very good, daddy.
My biggest regret is having to pack a year's worth of grandparent time into one week...it sucks actually but we have to make the best of the situation so we spent lots of time with Abs. Abigail's middle name happens to be Rose and since she was trotting behind the rose bushes I felt it appropriate to snap a shot of her behind her namesake:)
Abs is a pretty good subject. She has these great facial expressions and loves to explore her environment. And it might be that grandma allows her to explore a bit farther than momma and daddy do.....shhhhhhhhhhh it's our secret.
I couldn't resist manipulating this picture of her peeking out from behind this tree
Abs loves bubbles and I bought her her very own bubble gun...squirt-er...whatever in the heck is the correct terminology. Umm she's a Texas girl so perhaps gun is OK?
And as you can see she had a blast with it
I can't figure it out...both Abs and Julia like to thieve and drink out of whatever water bottle I happen to be drinking out of. I say they are just grandma's girls and that is all that needs sayin about that.
This is a rarity, grandma and grandpa and the grand kids all in one picture together.

Texas is known for many things but a biggy is their blue bonnets. We were lucky enough to be there when many wildflowers were blooming. The most stunning in my opinion are the fields of blue bonnets.
And then there is the BlueBonnet Festival in Chappell Hill Texas. Ry, David, I and Abs went early in the morning (attempting to avoid the heat) hoping to see all of the crafter's stands, food stands etc....blocks of them in fact in this small little town. As it so happened the festival didn't start until noon...go figure we were there at 9am. Ah well we walked through the town and I busied myself taking pictures of the historic homes and buildings.
Porches, wonderful inviting porches


And benches surrounded by plants
The historic Chappell Hill Bank building
And Victorian homes
And on a back route to Ryan's, what is Texas without the Brahmas. No longhorns although I looked for some.
And windmills...I love windmills
The front of a great old building that looks like the inside of our porch with the old barn-board and corrugated tin
An old church that was soon to be torn down. Oh what David could do with that wonderful old wood
To top[ it all off....fleas. Yup I said fleas. Damn..... They do thrive in damp hot weather...it was damp and damned hot while we were there and the grass was infested with fleas. They are a nightmare and despite monthly treatments Peeko became infested scratching himself raw. We bathed him twice in special shampoo, sprayed the camper twice with flea rid spray....washed the bedding more than twice, vacuumed numerous times...blah blah blah. We are hoping just being gone takes care of the problem and of course the cold weather will help, the fleas anyway.
Thanks kids for the southern hospitality.
Texas was the last leg of our snowbird trip and we are currently about 500 miles from home. It was a great winter and we saw a lot and learned a lot but it will be nice to be home again. I am of course anxious to see out Minnesota girls and their new home. Here we come Leonard family.