More winter, 2008

Every day, as the snow kept coming, we saw more and more deer in our yard. We kind of felt sorry for them because they were always scratching around looking for something to eat. But since they are browsers, that's what they do. Besides, there are plenty of apple trees in our neighbourhood with left-over apples on them. I have heard stories too that some people throw corn out for our poor critters.


The snow kept coming and got deeper and deeper.

But a little winter weather doesn't stop us from having our annual Christmas Party at our Mini-Mall. There is always a good turnout and participation. After all...we get free coffee and cookies!

With all the snow, Karen had to resort to taking a lot of her photos from the window of the house. (That camera was always clicking away!)

Getting ready for Christmas - 2008

By the middle of December, I realized that there probably wouldn't be any ice fishing this year. I took my fish house out one time in November when there was a lull in storms and the snow had not piled up too much yet. Since then the snow kept coming, the roads to the lakes were blocked with snow drifts, and the lakes had so much snow on them that it would be impossible to drive on them except with a snowmobile-which I don't have.
So we just tried to keep the driveway and walkways cleared off and start getting ready for Christmas. We did have a special guest show up on our porch one day too!! Marge Simpson!!!!


The snow kept getting deeper....

Karen's almost daily chore was to keep a pathway open for her cats to get to the litter box behind the garage. Cats don't really like to scratch around in the snow so Karen made sure they were kept happy. If you are wondering how her cats survived in the winter like this--she did have them in the house a lot. I also had built them an insulated cat house and we kept an electric water dish in there too. That way they always had (thawed) water and the heat from the dish added some heat to the cat house as well. Not that they needed all that of course, but Karen liked to keep them happy.

Over the years we had toned down our Christmas decorating and eventually ended up with just a small tree. The holiday seasons were always special for Karen as she liked to decorate and make things look festive around the house. Who knows, I may even keep adding to her snowman collection even now.

And it stayed cold all winter too........ (click on this picture for enlargement.)

Thanksgiving Lefse

For Thanksgiving, the Marsh family has had a tradition of providing a Thanksgiving dinner for not only their entire family but the entire community as well. The Thanksgiving of 2008 saw a bit of a change in that they decided to put the dinner on at the American Legion Hall in Butte instead of out at the farm.
Since most of the people involved are of Norwegian descent, one of the main fares for this dinner is lefse. The ladies of Karen's Bible study group got together one day to have a lefse baking party. All I can say is that it is a good thing that I wasn't there because I would have eaten up all the profits.
It looks like they were having a great time of fellowship.....


It looks like they had a great time of hard work too!!!!........

I am inspired now to get our lefse griddle out this year and make some for myself. I don't know if I will be able to do it by myself or not though. Karen and I had a pretty good system down for turning out a pile of lefse.

At the dinner on Thanksgiving, I think I could have taken the prize for eating the most lefse. It's a good thing that no one was counting!

Ice fishing yet?

One day Karen and I went for a drive out to Cottonwood Lake to check the ice thickness in anticipation of a good ice fishing season. (This is still November 2008.) We both just loved the winter season. Actually as I think about it, we loved all the seasons. Each one has its own beauty and each season contrasts with the other. We always talked about how nice it is to live where there are four seasons. That is one of the main reasons we love it here so much and the reason we liked to go for country rides. Also, Karen could sit there and take pictures of clouds and wildlife.
Karen captured on film (data card) this rare North Dakota two headed ring neck pheasant. Isn't he a beauty??
Where ever we go there are deer. This is the time of year too where they start coming into our back yard looking for a handout, left over garden produce and to steal apples off our tree.
Click on this photo to check out his great rack.

Why are deer so shy?.......Except when they run out in front of you when going 60 miles per hour on the highway!! So I suppose we can conclude that deer have two personalities: shy and stupid.

I was able to walk out on the lake just a few feet or so. Maybe in a couple more weeks?

Picnics and Snowmen

Just a few weeks after our first snow in November 2008, I noticed the picnic table again and realized it was going to disappear soon if we kept on getting the snow storms that we had been getting so far.
One day when Karen was outside to take care of her cats, I looked out and saw that she was up to something else.

With the help of her cats, she built a very happy snowman. We usually don't have wet enough snow here to build snowmen but since our snow came early this year, she was able to put together a couple of them. Our snow is generally quite dry and powdery. Remember, it's a dry cold we have here.

Gardening in the snow

There were several things that Karen was passionate about, but for all who knew her there were two that stand out next to her love for God and the study of His Word. Those two interests were gardening and cats.
We always practiced "mulch" gardening and had very good success with it. I know we received strange looks and comments when people drove by and saw two feet of hay, straw, or other mulch on top of our garden. But when you can just pull the mulch back, lay your seed potatoes on top of the ground and cover them back up with the mulch, it sure made things easy. (To harvest the potatoes we just pull the mulch back again and pick up the new crop of potatoes right off the top of the ground.) Also, the mulch conserved soil moisture and weeds could not grow through the thick blanket of mulch.
We could also delay our harvest, especially root crops, because the mulch protected the crops. Sometimes we left some of it in the garden and pulled veggies all winter. On November 7 (2008), we pulled our beets because the snow was starting to pile up and we were getting hungry for them.
I'm getting hungry for some right now so I think I'll go down to the fruit room and see if there is maybe a jar or two of them left. Thank you Kare, for all your hard work.
On December 8, we decided to pull the carrots too because the snow kept coming and more was in the forecast. We knew approximately where they were in the garden but with so much snow on the ground, we had to poke around a little. After she swept away the snow in one spot she started forking off the mulch until the carrot tops were exposed.

And sure enough! Under all that snow and mulch, the carrot tops were still green and the ground was so insulated that it wasn't even frozen yet.

What a treat! Fresh garden carrots in December!

We decided to leave a few in the ground too just to see how far in to the winter we would be able to go out there and pick them. We did that for a while but, as I mentioned earlier, the snow piled up so much we couldn't even find the garden anymore. I haven't planted a garden yet since Karen died but after doing this post now, I am getting inspired to do so.

Picnic in the snow?

The first snow in November of 2008 put a little more snow on our picnic table than usual. In fact we sometimes have a bit of a thaw after the first snow so that we may be able to use the picnic table again. But not this year. Snow storm after snow storm came all winter long. In many places of the state a record snowfall was recorded. We no sooner shoveled off our walks and driveway, and either another snowfall came or the wind picked up and blew more snow in on the freshly cleaned walks.

By January the table was completely buried (well over 3 feet) with only a mound of snow on top to show us where it might be when spring comes. It wouldn't be until Easter Sunday morning when we walked out the door to go to church that we actually saw the top of the table for the first time all winter.

It was a cold winter too......but it was a dry cold.

First Snow - winter '08 - '09

Although most of you, as of this writing are still experiencing summer weather, I am starting to feel fall in the air in the mornings. The days are getting shorter too even though the sky is still light at 9:30 pm up here. With the onset of Autumn I feel like putting in a few posts of the winters past.
The winters of 08-09 and 09-10 have been a couple of the most severe winters that the Northern Plains have experienced in many many year. Some of the "old timers" have called them, "the winters like we used to have!"
In fact, we had so much snow during the last two winters that I was not able to go ice fishing except for maybe the very early season once or twice. There was so much snow that we were not able to get to the lakes because they were unable to plow the roads to them. Even if we could get to them, there was up to 2-3 feet of snow on the lakes which kept us from driving on the lakes. Both winters I was hoping that the snow would let up enough to get onto the lakes but it never did happen.
The first snow of 08 was on November 6. It wasn't just a dusting either like most first snows are but it just hammered us. I got out early to use the snow blower on the driveway.
The snow bank at least was high enough that I could take a break and sit for a spell.

The city's plow came by but we had such a big drift on our street that it got high centered and stuck. They had to call in the big guns to get unstuck.

And this is the way it was for the rest of the winter. The snow kept coming and the plows kept pushing.

EpiPen

I went to the cupboard the other day to look for some herbs and in the back of the cupboard I found Karen's EpiPen. That reminded me of the allergies that Karen had when we lived in California. It seemed her allergies flared up every time the eucalyptus trees were dropping pollen. We eventually had all the eucalyptus trees removed from our property which helped her breathing quite a bit but she still suffered from a stuffy nose and difficult breathing. She had heard that if you took "bee pollen" in moderate amounts and built up the dose over time, your body would eventually build up an immunity to allergies. She was willing to try anything so the first dose she took of bee pollen showed just how much she was allergic to bees. Her throat almost closed up. Thankfully we had Benadryl on hand. After that, we always kept an EpiPen around too.





By the way, after our move to North Dakota her allergies completely cleared up. She still carried an EpiPen in case of a bee sting, but isn't it great to breath clear, clean North Dakota fresh air all the time? In the summer of 2008, the whole town was plagued with an abundance of wasps. We had so many in our yard that Karen hung wasp traps in our trees and they filled up within days. One day while she was walking in the yard, a couple of wasps started pestering her. Her instinct was to swat at them and before I could tell her to just be still, one of them got her on her hand. The reaction was immediate and I convinced her to remove her ring at once. Good thing too because any longer and it would have to be cut off. Moral: Don't leave home without your EpiPen!!

My Sunflower

As I was driving to Harvey yesterday I was amazed once again at the beauty of the sunflower fields which are now in bloom. There are literally thousands and thousands of acres of them and it is so refreshing to take in their beauty contrasted with the clear blue sky. God's creation is awesome.

As I was thanking God for His beauty in creation, I was reminded how much Karen loved the fields of sunflowers as well. As we drove the countryside in years past, she always had her camera in hand. Many of her photos didn't turn out so well because she was taking them through the window as we were in motion. That was ok with her though, because she knew that at least one of them would turn out. Now I am left with the task of sorting through her files of photos and I am thrilled at all the memories that keep flooding back.
I have been going through the 2008 pictures files lately and pulled these out to post. One Sunday as we were leaving town for church, I pulled over just out of town. "What are you stopping for?", Karen asked. I told her I was going to take a picture of her by this sunflower field next to town. We all know how she felt about having her picture taken, don't we? I believe that is why she always kept the camera in her hand! It didn't take a lot of convincing, however, because of the fact that she liked these flowers so much.

Because she always had the camera and took most of our pictures, I don't have as many of her as I would like to have. But believe me, I am so thankful for the few that I do have. Here is my sunflower

Thank you God, for your wonderful creation.

HAIR - part two

Several have been asking how did that "Hair today - gone tomorrow" story turn out. To get the background on that again, I would encourage you to go to the BLOG ARCHIVE just on the right side of this page. Click on MAY (2) under 2010 and scroll down until you get to that story. Then you will have the background for this one.



This past May and June of 2010 I took another trip to California. A year's time had passed since his profitable buzz cut so I was anxious to see how Steven's hair was coming along. He had been true to his word had let his hair grow back again (maybe just a trim or two). So before we compared each other's hair, I had to ask him again. "Now that it has been a year, are you going to go back to buzz cuts again?" A resounding NO. He assured me that he likes his hair just as it is. "Why don't you get it cut again?", I pried. "I'm just not", he says. I now catch a glimpse of Mom who is sitting across the room and she has a little smile on her face. "What?", I ask unknowingly. The two of them look at each other and a little smirk shows on Steven's face. "Well," says Mom, "The girls like to run their fingers through his hair." WHAT? This is my grandson we are talking about here. Just because he is almost a teenager doesn't mean that girls can run their fingers through his hair!!! Steven, is that true??? He assures me that it is. And you like it I suppose. "Of course".



Wait a minute: if you have long hair, the girls will run their fingers through your hair? Hmmmm. (Now if only I could grow bangs.)




Really, Steven? The girls like to run their fingers through long hair?? Hmmmmmm.

So how did we do on our agreement?