Wild Weekend! Sort of!

We had 7 inches of snow on Thursday through Friday morning. It was up to Charlie's neck. That is how we measure snow around here.

Thankfully, around 9am on Friday, Frank showed up in his old beater pickup truck and plowed us out. I was in the middle of cleaning when he showed up and stuck my head out to thank him so much for his work. Yes, I pay him $50 for each time he plows, but IT is worth it for me not to fret about it or try to tackle that long hill on my own.

Just after Frank cleaned us out, I got a text saying that Dennis [18 yr old Grandson] was on his way to come and spend the weekend with us.

Saturday morning it was below frigid. It was 5 degrees below 0 F or -20C.  I waited until it was just above zero to do chores. Dennis wanted to take a hike through the woods. 

Charlie wanted to go but it was too cold for his paws so for most of the 2 mile hike through the forest, we took turns carrying him. Dennis actually dressed for the weather in his new Carhartt's. He has just landed a full time job doing finishing work in construction. It sounds like it is a good trade to learn and he'll always be busy. His finishing job is doing trim around doors, windows, and floor boards.

I may hire him to finish up what hubby couldn't do when he had his stroke.

We had a wonderful visit with his parents. Rich's daughter is an amazing cook and she prepared Prime Rib and all the fixin's to perfection at our house. We had an early supper and enjoyed each other's company.

They left, Dennis stayed as he wanted to go see the Ice Caves and give Grandma a ride in his new to him Truck.

Getting to the caves this time was a bit harder with the snow hiding all of the rough footing underneath. However, we got there. 

Infrared photo of the ice caves:

We bypassed going into the second set of 'caves' and headed instead to admire the ice along Weister Creek.

Hey! A shot of me with Charlie in front of one of the most beautiful places at the Reserve in the winter. Dennis took this for me.

The creek in IR:

Not IR

See that hillside behind me on the other side of the creek? There are a few 'sketchy' trails that go right above that ice and head further east of the creek. We went there to go see this...

There is a cable that runs across the bottom of the ice here. I've never figured out what it is for in the 10 years I've been visiting this spot. What was it for? Where did it go?

The water here is too deep to try and follow it out across the creek. It seems to end in the rock. 

Here is the same scene in IR unprocessed. Wild right?

Eerie! 

With channel swapping which basically swaps the colors nearly opposite of what they are. There is more to it than that, but this is the simplest explanation.

I'm fond of the cool blue tinted ice. 

...and now?

Onto the next phase of this week. Some fun and some quiet.

Santa is inrtoduced to his relief driver!

Un Mother's Day

Don't get me wrong. I like Holidays but I don't really care for things that seem to me to be made up days.

Okay. It isn't a made up day. In the US Woodrow Wilson declared Mother's Day to be a National Holiday in 1914.
Anna Jarvis then spent years trying to abolish the Holiday because it became too commercialized. Her efforts failed and she died in 1948.

There is a lot more interesting history if you look up the History of Mother's Day. It even dates back to the Greek and Roman Era. I imagine it wasn't as commercialized as it is now. It probably included some sort of appreciation of a mom, a woman, and a fertile figure of some sort.

Now Mother's Day is a fanfare of marketing commercials. Restaurants are full on Sunday, flower shops and garden centers are mobbed. Card makers sell cards. I can recall trying to phone my mom many years ago [remember phones that you had to dial?] and getting a busy signal for the phone lines because they were overwhelmed by calls.

I let Mother's Day slide by now as my MIL is gone and I don't have to run out for cards and flowers to show my appreciation for her. I showed her my appreciation all year long by helping her out for years. Geographically we were close so it was easy to help her out. She was always grateful and kind to me. 

My own mother is alive and apparently well. She thrives on drama and I don't. Our last conversation ended quite badly as I apparently was quite busy with my husband's failing health and didn't bother to check up on her. I don't do guilt anymore and I don't try to make her happy.

She taught me well with her own mother-daughter relationship which was quite strained. Her family dynamics [big word for how everyone gets along] was and still is difficult to understand. 

Some mother - daughter relationships are toxic or difficult. That is just a fact. Our relationship has always been a bit strained and I tried so hard for many years to make her happy. 

I couldn't.

Do I love her? Of course. I have so many attributes that I have learned from her. Her incredible strength in the face of adversity. Her variety of skills are amazing. Cooking is not one I inherited. 

My husband used to ask what I wanted for Mother's Day. I would answer: Nothing. Just some time to do what I loved. Photography and Hiking, or riding.

I usually hear from my sons and that is plenty for me.

Happy Mother's Day to all you Mothers:

No Christmas Music This Year!

 Since I don't listen to the regular radio and can play Pandora or pick my favorites with Amazon, I realized today that I have NOT listened to Christmas music, other than the canned stuff in a store while I was shopping.

Thankfully, I wasn't in the store long enough to listen to the endless reel of bad Christmas music.

I don't watch normal TV except Hulu once in a while so we were not inundated with Christmas Ads either. What a relief!

I do like Christmas music and I will play what I want to hear later on tomorrow. I have narrowed most of my music down to instrumental and not overdone vocals and remakes of the classics.

My most liked Christmas music is by Pentatonix, TranSiberian Orchestra, and The Piano Guys.

My all time favorite is 

Christmas Canon

My father was a huge fan of classical music and that might be why I lean this way. I like almost all music but tend to listen to the Classic Rock of my age group and some Electropopswing which is really quite fun.

Tomorrow I'll pop in my headphones and play what I'd like to listen to.

What's your favorites??

Labor Day Blues

Normally I don't bother getting excited over holidays or days such as Memorial Day, 4th of July, or other ones. However Labor Day weekend has come and that means that the visiting of Grand kids is pretty much over.

For a long while.
And that makes me sad.

No more surprising photos of me taken by a grand child with a camera.

No more PJ Sunrise adventures for quite a while.

That black blob in the lower right of the photo is me.
Below is Ariel sporting her PJ's and my sweatshirt.

Or having a riding partner...

So I guess this will be my first Labor Day in a long time where I will look at it...as the end of the visits from the grand children.

I will sport a sad face when the kids leave. I'm pretty sure that I won't see them for quite a while again. That is unless I go to see them at their 'city homes'.

Everyone seemed to love their stays at the farm this year.

I hope to have all the grands together again for Grandpa & Grandma Camp next year.

We should have the house finished and plenty of room for all 5 grands at once.
That could be a fun week of madness as they will range in the ages of 2 to 13.

Why not, you only get to be a grand parent once in your life.

And so holiday decorating begins

I guess I start decorating things just after Thanksgiving.  Sometimes I wait a few days [depending on my schedule] and sometimes I can't wait to get at it.

I moved the Christmas Chair to a different spot this year.  We finally got rid of that butt ugly orange-brown recliner that hubby got from either a grandmother or some far off distant relative.  Let me say I think it was a 1970's model.  No one except Morris really used it.

This year Morris won't have to get used to another spot for his crate, it can stay where it usually sits.  I think that will make him happy.

I purchased some battery operated LED lights that are on a thin wire this year.  I thought I'd try them.  They actually work wonderfully well.

I decorated a dresser top last night and this morning took a shot of it lit up.

Those little bitty lights are really bright!  

Yesterday afternoon I washed windows and walls.  I didn't feel like doing it, but it is the normal thing I do in preparation for putting up some decorations.  Besides, I'd held off washing the windows because I thought I'd have nice new ones by now.
Well, I can see out of the old ones!

This year I'm using not just the old wooden chair, but the Red Mule Crate and the Hillbilly Soda crate which are also both wooden and both pretty old.

Today is the last day of Gun Deer Season, hubby is out hunting and has spent almost every day of the season so far out in the woods.
He did get a doe on opening day.

I can't wait for the season to be over so I can hike the creek and look for frozen water encrusted grasses and other beautiful things.

I took these of the frost this morning.

I love the intricate designs that frost makes. I took these on the north side of the big shed.

And lastly, a couple of shots of the eagle I saw on the way back from recycling yesterday.

He was pretty far away and the zoom on the camera I was using wasn't the greatest, but there he/she was!

Wild Flowers, roads, Lyme Disease

 Kolstad Road

I made my return to work this past week.  In truth I did actually miss going to work.  I like interacting with my co-workers and although our group is quite small and can be 'interesting' sometimes...I found that I missed them.

I was supposed to start back on the 4th of July but as nothing is ever written in stone, I responded to two call offs on the 2nd and the 3rd.  Easing back into the job with 40 hours in 4 days.

Hubby was feeling as though he could get through the day just fine as long as I made sure he had something to eat and helped arrange his meds.

I muddled through chores the first two shifts and then came home announcing that I probably had contracted a Lyme Diseased tick bite on my hike a couple of weeks ago.  I recall pulling a tick off me at late at night but never gave it a second thought.

Friday about 4am at work I got a horrid headache along with a stiff neck that quickly transpired into body aches and a fever.  My supervisor and told me to get some rest and he'd see me tomorrow as I was switching from night shifts to days shifts.

My night was horrible.  I woke up soaked in sweat and at 4am I had a fever of 102.1.  I got up drank a lot of water, took 2 Tylenol and took an Ice Pack back to bed.  I pushed the ice pack onto my face.  Finally after about 20 minutes I didn't think my face and eyeballs were going to explode.
In an hour my fever had dropped to 99.5 and the headache was gone, but I still felt like I had been kicked by a pro athlete.
I got up by then and decided to stay up.  I wanted in the worst way to call off as 'sick', but knew work would be hard pressed to cover my shift that close to start time on the 4th of July.

When I got back to work, the night shift super looked at me and raised his brows in question?  I shook my head.  He asked if I'd had a bug bite recently.  Then it hit me.  That tick, two weeks ago!
I went into the bathroom and took a quick look.  Yes there it was, the tell tale 'rash' or 'bulls-eye' red mark.

Monday I went to the clinic and was told I had classic Lyme's Disease symptoms and was given Doxycycline to take for 14 days.

My work route is currently under construction, the Romance bridge is completely gone and is being replaced.  For two nights I took and alternate route to work.  It is the same distance and about the same amount of travel time, but I dislike the twisted uneven narrow road. Some co-workers told me how to get around the construction and I immediately fell in love with the drive on this twisted road with breath taking views.

 Northridge Road

While at work I found some extremely beautiful wild flowers that grow naturally in our prairie areas.

I found these plants growing together and after doing some research with one of my co-workers we discovered that it was called Silk Prairie Clover or Dalea villosa.

 Silk Prairie Clover White

Silk Prairie Clover Purple

The purple clover would be easy for the casual eye to mistaken as Vervain which is another one of my favorite prairie flowers that have a beautiful blue/purple hue.

 Vervain

Another favorite, especially if you can catch it just beginning to open is Queen Anne's Lace.

 Queen Anne's Lace

Daucus carota

Wild Carrot

Actually, I've dug these up on wet days and found roots big enough to munch on.  They do have a very strong carrot flavor.  But the blossoms when they are just opening tend to have a purple hue to them.  This was also taken just after the sun was beginning to hit the valley and that may have helped the hue.

Well, between work and not feeling well at all I still managed to take some photos worth mentioning.

Of course there is a mystery plant that neither my co-worker or I can identify.  Neither one has seen this plant blossom so we don't know the color it might have been.  It is so unique that we are quite taken with it.

Edit and update:  This plant is called the Indigo Plant! The flowers are a beautiful blue.  My neighbor was able to ID it for me.

 Isn't this something else?

Anyway, that should catch everyone up my life in the slow lane.

I am having my first day where I actually feel quite normal and not as if I've been tackled or tossed around.  First day without a fever and a headache.

I am on the mend.

 

Morris thoughts on Holidays....

If Christmas were to be left up to pets, we'd just gather for some kibbles and chase a ball or toy, sniff each other's parts, and take a nap.  
Any growling or not getting along would quickly be sorted out and forgotten and forgiven.  
See how easy it could be???
I think we could all learn from our pets!

Morris says, smell your sister's butt, lick her face, toss a ball or Hedgehog at her [you can insert any relative in place of the sister]...go outside and pull down your pants and 'go' in the yard together, nothing like that kind of bonding.  Come in, eat, play, and take a nap.  No discussions of religion, politics, or anything else. 
What a smart dog!