A Sunday and a whole day at home.   I liked that.   I am almost done changing all the clocks in the house.   I still have to hit the lower level.   Do you know that we have 9 separate clocks JUST upstairs.   Thank heavens some of them correct themselves.    That still amazes me.

We had pork chops with apples and boxty for our lunch.    The boxty was my first attempt and was rather non-discript.  I will try again.

Nothing else exciting, but I did send a little story that I wrote about Chelsea to a librarian at Kewaskum who was at the writers conference.

I will share it with you. So this won't be too boring a blog

Love

Mary

Chelsea & the Little People by Mary Kunert

Chelsea, my dog, was terrified of my Mother's kitchen floor.

The first time I took her with me to visit Mother, she zipped into the house, greeted Mother enthusiastically, ran around the living room and came to a screeching halt right at the doorway to the kitchen. But she would not set one foot on that kitchen floor no matter how we coaxed her, or chided her or begged her. She was trembling in fear.

One Sunday, my husband and I were going to be gone much too long for a little doggie to be shut up in a house without a potty break. Mother said she would watch her for us. They got along just fine, but Chelsea spent the entire day in the living room. Mother put her water just inside the kitchen door so that Chelsea didn't have to go in there to drink and she was able to be taken out to potty through the front door.

It is pitiful to see an animal so distressed. However it is also very funny. Mother and I decided that the Little People must be inhabiting the kitchen. What else would cause that poor dog to be in such a state of panic.

Irish Little People are generally leprechauns. Leprechauns, tradidionally shoemakers, live very solitary lives. They don't like to be distracted from their shoe making even for the tailoring of their own clothing. And they are not especially fond of dogs, you know.

Then, one spring, my son Bart, his wife Barbara and I went on a driving tour of Ireland. We drove around the country in a rented car. That was an experience in iteslf. Bart refused to drive as I had gotten a stick shift and he has a back injury. Barbara left it up to me. Driving on the “wribg sude if tge riad” is terrifying, especially when the roads are narrow, bordered by stone walls and populated by big wide trucks, all going the other direction. We had a memorable trip, traveling from Dublin to Athlone to Cork to Avoca and back to Dublin.

As Barbara and I were strolling down a cobbled Street in Cashel, stretching our legs and enjoying the city, we spotted a tiny little jacket on the ground. By tiny, I mean Barbie size. But it was a man's jacket. Barbara and I decided that this jacket must belong to the Little People and scooped it up to take home with us. Our Barbara is German, but Germans have their Little People too. The Irish have their leprechauns and the Germans have their gnomes. Everybody seems to have fairies.

Upon arriving home from Ireland, I took the little Jacket to Mother's house. She and I carefully placed it in a convenient place in the kitchen as a gift for the Little People. This may seem odd to you.

I am not going to tell you that that little jacKet disappeared, but the next time took Chelsea to visit Mother, she ran right into the kitchen and started exploring. You believe as you choose, but we decided that the gift of the jacket left the Little People feeling friendlier, even towards the dog.

BE GOOD TO THE LITTLE PEOPLE AND THEY WILL NOT DO WICKED THINGS OR TERRIFY YOUR ANIMALS.