I slept until 6:30AM with only the 3:30AM pit stop for Chelsea. At least it is finally warm. It was 66 degrees at 3:30 and got up to over 80 during the day.

It was a busy morning. I went to the bank, grocery shopping and to Walgreens. So the shopping is almost done. One of Dick's prescriptions was not ready because it had to wait until tomorrow because of the insurance. I can pick that up on my way back from Keith Carpenter's funeral in the afternoon. Keith died on Sunday morning. He was a very good friend of the Deeley family. His sons, Lee and Cory go deer hunting with us every year.

Years ago, One of those boys, I think Cory, wanted to go deer hunting. Keith knew that Dad and my brothers hunted, so he asked if he and Cory could come along. Keith outfitted himself and Cory, saw that Cory got Hunters Ed and they both went out one November along with my family. Keith did not like hunting. He knew he wouldn't but he also knew that once he had ensconced Cory with the Deeley Party, his son could pursue his wish to hunt and he would not have to worry about him. Now, that's a good DAD. Pray for his soul and his family.

This afternoon, Bobbie picked me up a bit after noon and we went out morel mushroom hunting. Between us we got about a dozen, enough for us each to have a nice fresh mushroom omelet in the morning. It was a nice day in the woods. I am totally tired. Bobbie got lost but we were able to keep in touch by telephone and a kind man who works for Plymouth Utilities found her on the road and took her back to the car. From there she was able to connect with me. I had found my way back to the initial plowed field that we came in on. We did have a wonderful time and plan on making a date to do it again next year, perhaps after a rain when there will probably be more 'shrooms up and ready for the taking. We also plan on bringing compasses.

Sleep tight and have a great day tomorrow.

Mary

Am I ever glad that this day is winding down. I got up a little later today, 6:30AM. (Of course, I did have my little Chelsea wakeup at 3:30AM.) Had a nice morning. Just prepared things for lunch and Dick and I had to get ready to take him to the Anti-Coagulation clinic to see if the change in medication had worked. It had - a bit too much the other way. As I have said his count is supposed to be between 2 and 3. Last week it was 4.1. This week it was 1.5. So we have adjusted again and will go back next week to see if we are back in place.

Nora and Leif and Mother arrived shortly after 11:30 so we could have lunch and a visit. It was so pleasant. I love visiting with them and we had so much to share. I served Zucchini Veggie soup with sandwiches. We had choices. BLTS with either Irish Bacon of regular Bacon. I also fried up some mushrooms for those who prefer veggies to meat.

For dessert we had Cherry Dream Pie. It is something that Lil used to make and my friend Janet reminded me of. Here it is as it is so simple and tastes so good.

Cherry Dream Pie

2 cups soda crackers, crushed
6 egg whites
3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cups chopped nuts.
1 envelope Dream Whip, prepared or 2 cups thawed Cool Whip
2 cans cherry pie filling

Beat egg whites with cream of tartar and sugar until stiff peaks form. Blend in crushed soda crackers, vanilla and chopped nuts. Pour into greased baking dish approximately 9" x 13" x 2" and bake at 350 degrees F. for 20 minutes, or until done.

Let cool.

Top with whipped topping, spreading evenly over cracker crust. chill at least two hours.

Top with cherry pie filling, spreading evenly over chilled whipped topping.

Chill, cut and serve.

Note: Other pie fillings may be used. Blueberry is good.

They all left at about 2:00. Then Dick had to be at Wisconsin Prosthetics at 3:30 to have the stump recasted for his next cup on the prosthetic. That went quite well, we were home by 4:30 so the animals were not insinuating that we were late, though they did demand immediate service.

Now, as I said, I am very tired and ready to go to bed. I hope I can stay awake long enough to see who is the winner of Dancing with the Stars. I may have to find out in the morning.

Hope you had as nice a day as I did. Not only did we have great company but the weather was beautiful. Tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer.

Love
Mary

What a day. Chelsea got me up the first time at 4AM but I got up finally at 6AM. I did my usual, feeding of critters, showering, walking Chelsea and breakfast for us. (We had more of the Organic Blaster pancakes for breakfast. Chelsea likes that in memory of Zero, she always gets a pancake.)

Went to Bible Study at 9:30. We had a pretty full crew again. The readings were all about the Ascension of our Lord. Even Paul's epistle referred to it. We decided that it must have been a very confusing thing for the apostles to watch him rise up into the sky and disappear. Then they had to go back in to town as instructed to wait for the Holy Spirit before starting on their mission. But as they were staring up to heaven those eleven men must have been really confused especially when two guys dressed in white appeared and asked them why they were doing that - that Jesus would come back the same way in his time. Apparently it is not his time as yet even.

After the study was over I went over to Mom's. She seemed a bit tired to me today. I would not be surprised if she decided not go go to the wedding on Saturday but we will see how she feels that morning. Either way, Kathy and I are going to go together to the reception. I think I told you that my Uncle Pat's son is getting married and his reception is at Lambeau. It is Memorial Day weekend, so Jeff, of course, will be at Indy, but Kathy and I want to to go anyway.

Nora and Leif came while I was visiting with Mom. They are here for a whole week and will be coming to lunch tomorrow and bringing Mother with them. I am so glad of a chance to visit with them. Leif is an avid newspaper and news magazine reader and clips and sends articles to people that he thinks will be interested in them. He send a clipping from a newspaper published in India that he found in an Indian (curry Indian not tepee Indian) restaurant. He sent it because it had a picture of Obama and sent the translation of the caption also.

Somehow, Nora and I started talking about language and it reminded me of my late Uncle Earl. He was my ex husband's uncle, married to my darling mother in law, Lily's sister Velma. Earl took Spanish because he loved to go to Mexico for long vacations and spent lots of time with friends that he met and rented space from down there. Uncle Earl adapted the Castillian Spanish that he learned to Mexican and even gave Lily and me lessons in Mexican for a while.

When Earl crossed the border into Baja California, he seldom spoke English, which annoyed Aunt Velma no end but that is the way it was. Anyway, at one point, his daughter, Carol, was taking Spanish in High School. Earl got a letter from his friend in Baja so he sent it to school for Carol's teacher to share with the class. I think you are probably aware that most languages have very strict rules of pronunciation and of spelling. One of the questions Earl's friend asked him was how the freeway traffic was on the way home the previous weekend. However, though the Mexican's use the word freeway, the man did not know the English spelling of the word and it came trough as frigue, a very proper and phonetic spelling of the word. I don't know if she used it or not but she sent it back with no comment.

I came home and we ate Swiss steak that I had put into the crock pot before I left this morning.

At 1PM the Cream City Writers had their meeting. I read a sonnet that I had written. I will share it at some future time as I am not sure if I want to submit it somewhere first. Dick liked it and that makes me feel that it is pretty good.

Home again and I have been able to stay home since then. BUT at 4PM I led the telephone conference for Celtic Women International. We covered a lot of ground. We discussed the success of the Gathering, set up a committee to review our bylaws, gave the branch reports and lots of other details. I have work to do and must do it by Friday so it stays fresh and gets to the proper people in time.

We had a light supper.

I had a meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee for Tallgrass tonight. I had offered our home for the meeting. That way I could stay home. It worked out very well. Dick got to meet a couple more of the residents too. We met downstairs and I think accomplished a lot. Now we have a couple more details which we should have by the end of the week and will present the package to the board for approval. Mark says that he thinks the road can be done in June if we get off of our duffs and get the OK. That is the major problem that the committee is facing. The other problems are also being addressed in their time as the paving will solve a couple of the other problems to begin with.

Finally the day is over and after I finish this I can go to bed.

Tomorrow, Dick will be casted for the second of his prosthesis cups. That will be exciting.

Love

Mary

It was so nice to wake up and have Richard and Brenda here. They got Dick's computer working for him. He has a couple of things to learn because it is Windows Vista which is a step or two up from what I have and he had before. They gave him a wonderful picture of a cat that looks like Roxie for his wallpaper.

I love having people to cook for. We had pancakes squirted out of a can for breakfast. The Pig had a special. It is called Organic Batter Blaster and is dispensed just like those whipped cream cans that one turns upside down to use.

They were pretty good, we all agreed. It was rather funny when I bought them. At least four of the Pig employees told me that they were good. Apparently a can was at the expiration date and someone brought in an electric griddle and cooked the pancakes up for them to try.

I also fixed scrambled eggs and chives to go with it.

Jim and Michelle called today at about 9:30AM. We were sure relieved. And calling with Richard and Brenda here was fortunate. They have been busy with work and with getting unpacked and all. This is the first weekend that they were not unpacking. Busy and learning their new jobs. They are eager to contact Bart and Barb now hoping they can get together with them on the Memorial Day weekend.

I went out to Rhine to work on the Lewis shoot that we put on today. It was really rather slow. I got there at about 10:30AM and stayed til almost two, tending bar and ordering the steak sandwiches for people. All of the events, Lewis shoots, leagues, seem to be down. I guess that people are not spending as much as they were.

We had leftover spinach casserole for supper tonight. Easy fix.

Some time ago, I told you about Bart's bunny. Well, Bret had a blanket, "Blankie" of course. It was one of his thermal baby blankets. Coincidentally, it was yellow, you my remember that Bart's bunny was also yellow. Bret was a thumb sucker and he loved this blanket because it had a nice silky binding that felt good. Over the years it too became rather gray and faded. At least Blankie could be washed sometimes so it did not stink. Finally it was down to one side of the binding being still attached and a strip of another side hanging like a tail. He was now about 4 and was finally able to go many places without his blanket but it still was very important to him. I asked him if he wanted me to take that strip that was hanging off of it and he said yes. So. I pulled it loose and all of the binding came off. He was horrified. I guess that he did not realize what I was saying. That ended his Blankie phase anyway. I apparently had killed it.

Tomorrow is going to be almost a marathon day with four separate functions starting with Bible Study at 9:30AM and ending with a condo committee meeting here at 7PM. Pray for me. I will be exhausted.

Love

Mary

 

I thought that you might like to see a picture of St. Patrick's Church. The stones were brought by the farmers of the parish and the sand for the morter was brought by wagon from Lake Michigan. Layer by layer they built their church.

Mary

Despite the wind, which made it a might cool, it was a wonderful day. Chelsea woke me up the first time at 4:30AM. I woke up at about four and kind of wondered if I should be worrying but made up my mind that I was not going to go to check until 6AM when I had to get up anyway. I was really rather relieved to hear her tags start rattling just before she came to get me.

Had a rather busy morning getting ready for everything.

I had to be at the Tallgrass Annual meting at 10AM. That went rather smoothly. We got several reports including the report from our Ad Hoc committee. There were a few questions but people seemed receptive to the progress that has been made. The committee is going to meet next Monday at 7PM. I told them that we could meet here. I will set up a table down in the den downstairs. We also elected a whole new slate of officers. Actually one is staying on which will provide some cohesiveness, but the rest all had expired terms or resigned because they were not happy with the outcome of the vote regarding litigation.

I went right from there to pick up Nancy, then onto St. Patrick's in Adell for the first leg of our cemetery tour. We had a wonderful turnout. There were 18 of us at various times of the tour. St. Patrick's is such a beautiful old stone church. It is only a chapel now, (Beth commented that both St. Patrick's and St. Michael's are now called chapels. In Ireland the Catholic churches were called chapels as the protestant churches were the churches.) There is a preservation committee as part of Our Lady of the Lakes Parish trying to keep St. Pats from being destroyed. As long as they can raise $3500 per year for maintenance it is OK. They are trying to figure out how to get an endowment fund established but that his hard. Sometime, if you want to go out there we can arrange it. Just let me know.

We went from there to Cascade for lunch at the Madison Avenue Inn. Brenda, the owner, is so accommodating. We all had such good lunches and it is so charming. I had their flavor of the day coffee and as cup of Wisconsin Cheesy Bratwurst soup with a half a Veggie panini. Really good. We can go there too!!!

We stopped for a while, as long as we could stand the cold wind in the graveyard next to the now closed St. Mary's in Cascade. Beth told a couple of stories of some of the Cascade Irish,notably the Keyes. I will have to tell Tom about that on Monday at Bible study. One of his ancestors, a young woman, came into the country sick. She managed to get past the inspectors and off the boat and to her relatives. However, they were afraid of her illness. It was winter and they made her stay in a shed out back with no insulation and no help. The poor woman survived but lost all of her toes during that cold winter. When she was well, she walked away to some other relatives and never turned back. She had a very rough life besides that. She married and had 10 children but only one grew to adulthood, this was Tom's relative.

Our last stop was St. Michaels out near Parnel. There Beth told stories of the church and the residents. We finished there and headed home. I was in Plymouth just in time to go to Mass at 4PM. That means that tomorrow I will be much freer.

I am now totally exhausted and will fold up for the night.

Tomorrow will be busy too as I am supposed to go out to Rhine to help out there.

So I will have more then.

Love

Mary

Richard and Brenda arrived this afternoon. Dick said that all of the animals, including Oscar, were very glad to see them. Richard is installing a new computer for Dick. He has been without his all week and is SO grateful. I called and had Brenda put the casserole in the oven when I got back into town so we were able to eat shortly after I got home from church. The spinach casserole was great. We had fruit salads to go with it and topped it off with Strange Chocolate Pie with whipped cream.

I am so very happy with the turnout and enthusiasm of the attendees at the cemetery tour. We even had Mary Malloy, a member of the CWI International board who lives in Chicago come up with her daughter. She told us about some special masses that will be said all around the world commemorating the Famine. We are thinking that this might be something to bring up to our pastors next year as it is always celebrated on May 17.

The end of a productive, busy and pleasant day.

I got up at about 6AM as usual (with our usual bathroom break at about 3AM for the little old lady, Chelsea.)

Dick stayed in bed until almost 10AM. I really don't know how well he slept during the night as I sleep between 10PM and 6AM like normal people. But since he was asleep, I assembles a spinach casserole for tomorrow's dinner, a vegetable soup that just needs to be heated and have cheese melted into it, and a Strange Chocolate pie. I also mopped the kitchen floor.

I did a couple of errands at about 9. I mainly took the clothes that I had weeded out of my closet to St. Vincent de Paul. No sense cleaning out the closet and leaving everything in the house.

Dick didn't eat breakfast until 10AM. So since I was having lunch with my bank lady friends at the Dairy Queen, I just brought him home the same lunch that I had. A cheeseburger and fries. They were good. But that made us not want supper too. So it was a lousy day for diabetic meals but that's the way it goes once in a while.

At 4PM I went to Wittkopp Funeral Home to give my support to the Robert Fenner family. Robert was at the Plymouth Care Center and died this week. Bob was two years younger than Mother and attended her and Dad's wedding reception. His daughter in law was one of the RNs at the Care Center and she sent a message to Dick that she misses him because she could always escape into his room when she needed to get away for a few minutes.

Tonight I went down to the Plymouth Art Center for their 9th Annual Spring Concert called The Music of Spring. My friend Kate Herman is one of the singers as well as several other of my friends. It was a nice concert. The music was diverse and well selected, some of it very challenging. The chorus did a lovely job.

Tomorrow too will be a busy day what with the condo meeting and the cemetery tour. Richard and Brenda will be here sometime during the day to take care of Dick's computer needs.

Everytime I think things are settling down they rev up again.

Love

Mary

A sunny day today, but the wind was blowing until way after lunch. And it was cold. When Chelsea and I went for our walk I had to walk into the wind which certainly does do a good job of demonstrating that old Irish Blessing which starts "May the wind be always at your back."

Dick had an appointment at the anti coagulation clinic at 10. The count was 4.1 - way up. We can't figure out why. Usually it takes a change in diet or a change in medication to cause a major change and we have had a very mundane life these past few weeks. Hard to figure. So. He has to back off for a couple of days and then he will be rechecked on Tuesday. There goes his whole week without a medical appointment.

I cleaned bathrooms and worked in the gardens a bit today. The workers were out mowing and also thinned out the tall grasses in front or our condo in the berm. They are just beautiful but last year they grew so big that they blocked the whole porch and threatened to take over the berm. So I asked that they thin them. They reduced them by at least half. They will plant some of the weeded out pieced around the tract and left some for Jeff and Kathy. Kathy really would like some at their home.

This afternoon Nancy and I went out to Rhine and I finished shooting my league targets. Nancy has three more to shoot but will go out tomorrow and finish during open hours. We had just gotten a bit behind this league.

Tomorrow night, I intend to go down to the Plymouth Art Center to watch the spring music event that Kate is performing in. Songs of Spring, I believe. Poor Kate, her 10 year old kitty named Riley, was hit by a car early this week and has a badly broken leg. Kate is trying to save his leg for him. She settled him in a box in the kitchen and amazingly that badly injured animal made it upstairs during the night and crawled under their bed to sleep. He had to be close to them. God won't mind if we pray for Riley's recovery.

Tomorrow I will be cooking. I am going to put a spinach noodle casserole together for Saturday night. Dick and Brenda will be here on Saturday and I will be gone on the Cemetery tour MOST of the day so figured that it can just be popped in the oven about an hour before we eat. I am also going to fix a special dessert and some soup.

Haven't heard from Jim and Michelle. Guess they must be very busy.

Tomorrow it is supposed to rain. But Saturday is going to be clear and sunny albeit a bit chilly.

Love

Mary

Would you believe that Chelsea dragged me out of bed at twenty to three this morning. I was not really very happy with her but what can you do with an old lady. I went back to bed of course when we got back in and slept until 6AM.

I decided to try feeding her after her walk this morning. Didn't do any good. So I put the food up on the counter UNDER a basket of veggies while I took my shower. That Oscar jumped up on the counter, pushed the basket off and ate most of Chelsea's breakfast. When we had our breakfast, which I got from Mc Donald's we gave Chelsea more food with a couple of scraps from our breakfast and she did eat.

Then I went grocery shopping and over to Walgreens to pick up prescriptions.

Got home just in time to fix lunch. After lunch and a rest, I spent quite some time going through my closets and drawers. I have two big bags of clothes that will go over to St. Vinnies when I head that way again. I still probably have way to many clothes but the closets are not jammed any more. I probably also at some time wish I had not given something away, but that is OK too.

Now, I will have to wake Chelsea up to take her outside so that I can go to bed.

Tomorrow may be a bit more exciting. I rather hope not though.

Mary


THE 10 COMMANDMENTS
The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse is this -- you cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal' 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery' and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians .... it creates a hostile work environment.

 

A picture of Roxie just for fun..


Mary

Chelsea is still not enthusiastically attacking her food, but we are getting her to eat. I am feeding her when she has had a chance to get a bit anxious. For instance, I feed the cats when I first get up but wait to feed her until we are done with our walk and everything.

I spent the morning cooking and cleaning a cupboard. I made beer bread, soup and a salad.

We had chicken and pasta for lunch and chicken soup for supper.

This afternoon, Nancy and I went shooting at Rhine. We have to be done with our league by Friday night. I was able to go out last Friday so only had six to go but Nancy was unable to shoot on Friday so is a week behind. We will go on Thursday and again on Friday so she can finish. The trouble is that all shooting has to be done by Friday. The bust up is in two weeks because of Memorial Day Weekend. We thought that we had another whole week.

Tonight I am watching Dancing with the Stars tonight to see who will be eliminated. It is really hard at this point. I think it will be between Gilles and Melissa but we were so surprised last week that Lil Kim was eliminated. This is the only show that I watch that is even close to a reality show.

The next two days are also comparatively quiet. Tomorrow I have to go grocery shopping and Thursday shooting but that is all. Whew. If it rains and soaks the gardens in back, I may go to do some weeding. Travis from Steger heating came and checked the air conditioner today and said that mosquitoes are out there. I am going to try the Listerine spray to see if I can keep them off of me.

Til tomorrow then.

Mary

The end of another weekend. It was Mother's Day today. Both Bart and Bret called me this evening and I received some lovely email Mother's Day cards. I went over to Mother's home with her card after Dick and I had our lunch.

Mother was just fine. Yesterday, Jeff and the family came in and took her out for dinner. Today she stayed home because lots of people call her and come to see her on this day.

I went to Mass at 10:45 this morning. It was a very nice mass. They are not serving wine to everybody as part of the Eucharist. I assume that will last until this swine flu thing is over. No sense in sharing a cup with a couple of dozen people.

Aside from the above it was a quiet day and now I am ready to call it a day.

A nice way to spend a Mother's Day if one cannot gather your "little ones" around you.

Love

Mary

It was quite a nice day today. Not the weather. When Chelsea woke me up at 3AM it was raining and was still raining when we got up at 6AM. When I went back to bed, Oscar came in with me. I thought that he would just cuddle then settle down to sleep, but by about 4:30 I had to send him out the door to wait with his cohorts.

I finished the vacuuming this morning. One really can't let that go when there are critters in the house. I seemed to wear myself out during the day anyway and took a nice nap at about 1PM after we got Dick through his bath which is quite an event. We are getting better at it. It is the moving from the chair to the tub that is the hardest but we are finding shortcuts.

Bill and Bobbie arrived shortly after I got up from my nap. Bobbie and I went down to the wine cellar and she helped me rack the two gallons and one half gallon of wine that have been in the works for quite some time. We were able to bottle the dandelion and the lemon balm wines. So we have 10 more liters that will be ready in six months to a year. The last one, a half gallon, started fermenting in earnest when we racked it so we decided to lit it finish. It is an orange wine, an experiment. I had a half gallon of orange juice that I forgot about down in the basement fridge. It started to ferment, so I added nutrients, camden tablets etc and let it finish. It has a nice taste so far and will be fun to share when it is done.

Bobbie is going to take up winemaking and it is a good time. Dick and I have stopped because he is unable to help me and it was always a fun thing for us to do together. I don't care to continue it alone. Anyway, this will work well, as we can give all of our equipment to her. She is going to try rhubarb first as her rhubarb is springing to live even as we speak. Mine is coming up too and I expect I will have enough to use fresh and freeze for winter use. Anyway, she has decided that she would like to make the first batch here so her Dad and I can go through the process with her as she goes on. We love that idea. She will also help us do the last box of wine that we have down there. It is White Zin and came just about the time Dick became unable to lift anymore.

Bobbie and I had the venison liver for our supper. I fixed bacon cheeseburgers for Dick and Bill. We had raw fried potatoes with it and Chocolate Banana Cupcakes for dessert.

Kitties loved all the attention they got today. Even Oscar was out from the beginning. Of course, he did do one dumb thing. I opened up the china cabinet under the breakfast bar and apparently turned my back just long enough for Oscar to get curious. I either closed the door or it closed on its own behind me and he was stuck. I could hear a muffled mew because I was filling animal food dishes and suddenly he burst out of the cabinet - all by himself. He was a bit upset, but it didn't last long as dinner was served almost immediately.

Chelsea's appetite is waning. She did not finish her breakfast and tonight when I put her food down, she did not seem at all interested. Bobbie discovered that if you offer her one kibble or piece at a time, she is willing to take it quite daintily out of your hand. Bobbie coaxed her into eating about 3/4 of her dinner that way. It is another sign of her age and the various ways her little body is failing.

It is almost bed time so I will wind down for the night. I received the following as part of an email. I thought it funny enough to share. Hope it brightens your day as much as it did mine.

Love.

Mary

Arkansas

A group of Arkansas friends went deer hunting and paired off in twos for the day. That night, one of! the hunters returned alone, staggering under the weight of an eight-point buck. 'Where's Henry?' the others asked.
'Henry had a stroke of some kind. He's a couple of miles back up the trail,' the successful hunter replied. 'You left Henry laying out there and carried the deer back?' they inquired.
'A tough call,' nodded the hunter. 'But I figured no one is going to steal Henry.'

Wednesday and Thursday, I went turkey hunting and had to get up at 3:30AM. I woke Chelsea up. Today, I did not go turkey hunting and she reverted to her ornery self and woke me up at 3:20AM. Can't depend on her at all.

I went back to bed, of course, and got up at 6AM. I cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms this morning and made another great fruit salad. Boy is the fruit good this spring. The watermelon and strawberries are to die for.

We had leftover hamburger helper for dinner at noon. Then I went in to give blood at the Blood Center for Peggy Feider's annual "A Gallon or so for Joe" drive. For the first time, I was not able to donate. My hematocrit reading was one point too low. I was totally surprised as I had eaten before I came and everything to be sure I would be OK. Oh well,I signed up for another 8 weeks and we will see how I do then.

So, I was home pretty quick from that trip. Then, I vacuumed the bedrooms and fixed Dick his supper. I had traded Harold Diedrich for working at Rhine tonight so I could go to the CWI Gathering last weekend, so left for Rhine at a bit before 5PM. We were pretty busy tonight though most of the league shooters are done. We only have about 9 rounds that have to be shot next week. I wish I could say the same for Nancy and me.

Nancy was waiting when I got out there tonight but she had gotten something in her eye while working in the yard today. She thought it would clear up but it was not so we will go out during the week and next Friday to get done.

So now we are home and when I am done with this will get ready for bed. Tomorrow, Bobbie and Bill are coming over. Bobbie and I are going to rack and bottle wine and then have a delicious liver supper. Dick and Bill will have bacon cheeseburgers. They will be happy with that though they will still complain about the liver being cooked in the same house that they have to eat in.

I called Jacquie Hiner today. I have been thinking of her and just wanted to hear her voice. She sounds pretty good but is really stuck at home because George is getting more and more symptoms of dementia or Alzheimer's, it has not been diagnosed.

I told her that if she ever gets a chance for a vacation, she can come here and relax. She has never been to Wisconsin and we could have a good time.

Take care and have a good weekend.

Mary

Another 3:30AM morning. At least it was much nicer out there today. I stayed out in the field until 11AM today. I decided that that was enough. I saw six birds today. Three hens appeared in the field in back of me during the morning. They were all hens, I am sure, and I was unable to interest them in my calling anyway. I think I saw a Tom down near Hwy 57 again. He was way to far away, and I was unable to interest him in my calls either. I guess I was just not sexy enough.

Then on my way out, I scared two hens who were foraging in a grassy area between my stand and the road. They took off like a shot.

It was really a beautiful day with sunshine and no rain at all. A lovely little brown wren came to see me later in the morning. He flitted in between me and my blind and just explored and chattered for a while. If he saw me, I did not frighten him. I made a point of sitting very still so as not to frighten him as he was just adorable.

When Bart was a little boy, he got a stuffed yellow bunny for Easter. That bunny became his "security blanket". Bunny was special though. He eventually became gray and shapeless and smelly. I noticed that sometimes when he would set Bunny down and there were other little people around, they would pick Bunny up and hold him until Bart came back to get him.

Finally, we went out to the Borrego Dessert on a jeep run. We belonged, as a family, to a club the went out to play in the desert at least once a month. We stopped just before going off road to the camp area to gather together, and then headed into camp.

When we got to camp, we realized that bunny was missing. Tragedy!!! I was trying to convince Bart that another stuffed animal would work when a couple of the older kids who had gone out on mini bikes as soon as we hit camp, radioed that they had found Bunny. Joy reigned. We waited eagerly for them to return. As they pulled into camp, Donnie reached in back of her minibike to give Bunny to Bart. Tragedy again!! Bunny had been resting on the tailpipe and was on fire. We made a decision to bury Bunny out there in the Borrego Badlands and move on with our lives.

One side note. A year later we were discussing going back to the Badlands and Bart said that perhaps we could dig Bunny up. He was a loyal little soul and has not changed much.

Love

Mary

I got up at 3:30AM to go turkey hunting. Pretty confusing for the critter. Our neighbor kindly came over to take Chelsea out at about 8AM as that is about the longest we feel comfortable for her to wait to go out at that time of day.

When I met Randy and Kenny out at the field, the stars were still out and it was very quiet. We were in our places by 5 or so and just waited. I heard quite a bit of gobbling on the way in and as the dawn broke but only saw two birds and they were too far away. One was in back of me. I had heard him as I walked in and could see his shape reflected in the tree against the sky. The trees are not very leafed out and he was pretty obvious.

Eventually I heard and saw him fly down from the tree. He had his back to me and I couldn't tell whether he was a hen or a jake. I tried to call him but he ignored my sounds and meandered the other way up the hill and out of sight never getting in my range.

The other was WAY down field towards Highway 57. I sit at the top southwest corner of the fields. He was a Tom as I was able to see him fanning and dancing down there. I tried to call him too, but though he showed a little bit of interest, he never started towards me and eventually made his way north and out of sight, never moving west towards me at all.

I left at about 9:15 because it started sprinkling. I had not seen anything since about 7 and it seemed silly to get wet when there was no activity going on. It rained pretty good as I was on my way home but stopped almost immediately. Randy had to leave to be at work at 8AM but Kenny was staying. They have those pop up blinds so a little rain wouldn't bother them.

I will try again tomorrow morning. I have been getting leg cramps, I am beginning to think from walking that field which has a really rough plowing job and is awful to walk on.

Tomorrow should be clear, I hope. Perhaps the turkeys will come out of the woods if it is.

I went grocery shopping this morning, then fixed lunch and took a nap. I fell asleep after supper too and don't believe I will have any trouble sleeping tonight either.

It was not a dull day out there. I saw two deer, a squirrel, geese, a heron and many other birds.

Tomorrow is Dick's birthday. He actually had a special meal today. I bought raw beef and he had raw beef and onion sandwiches on rye for lunch and dinner. He was a happy camper.

Love
Mary

 

CELTIC WOMEN - Hear us roar.

Mary

Chelsea and I had a lovely walk this morning. We decided to go through the park to Valley and then east to the other edge of the park and home through the woods like we used to do. This is the first time this spring. The path is in pretty good shape. It looks like the trilliums are just beginning to get buds so we are not too late either. Actually a lot of the big trees have not leafed out as of yet but it was a really good walk. Remember the year before last I told you that there were fairy rings in the grass on that side of Lion Park. Well, they are back.

When Dick laid down for his nap, I took Mother her meds and her money. I had forgotten her money when I went on Monday and I also had a nice sweet lavender scented bar of soap for her that I brought from Lake Geneva. We has a nice visit and then I came home in time to fix lunch for Dick and me.

I had a hair cut at 2:30 and have been spending some time getting ready for turkey hunting tomorrow. I finally reached Kenny and we are going to meet out at the field at 4:30AM tomorrow morning. It is supposed to be light at 5:15AM which gives us plenty of time to walk in. Hopefully it will not be raining.

As we finished our supper I got a call from Sara Behr out at Rhine. We were hosting the Kettle Shoot and not enough of the volunteers showed up to help - so I went out to tend bar for a couple of hours. I had missed the Monday night meeting because of the Tallgrass committee meeting and I guess there was a big blowup. The SCCA VS the shooters. What can you do. I am just as glad that I was not there. I just know that Hoover gave his keys to Dennis tonight and that is a big loss so Greg really got him mad. The SCCA (Sheboygan County Conservation Association) is having a raffle - The tickets are $100. each. The big prize is $10,000 BUT the thing that made Hoover and others mad is that they are "requiring" our club to sell at least 4 of them. This is probably possible but the members who are avid trap shooters resent more money going to the Association as they feel we have spent enough and we need to spend money on our own facility. Oh well, you don't care about that, I suppose.

I am going to send a picture of the Celtic Women for you.

Take care

Mary

The first day home from my getaway was hectic but I feel that a lot was accomplished.

I went to bible study. We had a nice discussion. The Gospel was the Vine and the Branches. And we kind of agreed that some of the "branches" we meet are hard to accept. Shirley recalled a statement by a wonderful lady from St. Dominics who said that she knew a whole lot of Catholics but very few Christians. An interesting observation.

Stopped at Mother's next. She had an episode of weakness on Saturday so did not go to Mass on Sunday. So. I picked up a bulletin for her. We visited until 11AM. Then I walked her two doors down the street where she was invited for lunch. The neighbor had a lovely table set up in her back yard. They have a koi pond in their back yard with a lovely cascading water feature.

Got home in plenty of time to fix and eat lunch before we took Dick to Plymouth Care Center to the beauty parlor to have his hair and beard cut. There is a gal there who does the nicest job for him. He looks really good.

I spent the afternoon working on computer, weeding down the email and just catching up. Tomorrow, I have to drop a couple of things off for Mother and get a hair cut. The rest of the day will be spent getting reports and emails done for CWI and for the Tallgrass committee that I am on. We met with Mark, the builder, tonight and discussed what we would LIKE him to do and he told us what he thinks he would be willing to do. It was a good meeting, not like the special meeting called by the current board where they were trying to instigate a law suite. That was so overwhelmingly overturned that Mark is feeling better about working with us and thanked us for actually meeting with him. The first actual meeting he said that he ever DID have wiht anyone about the problems. The main one is when to finish the road.

So I am done and trying wind down. I taped Dancing with the Stars and hope to watch it before tomorrow night. I will be too late to vote, but I can at least have my opinions down.

I got the trash all together during the day so tomorrow morning I just have to haul it out to the pick up place.

When I was walking down to Rick Iverson's house for the meeting, a fire truck was parked at the walk up to the park. There were several firemen milling around. I asked what they were doing and it was a controlled burn to clear the brush. A wee bit of excitement for the evening.

Take care and enjoy Tuesday.

Mary

I am home again.

Kate and I left Lake Geneva after a lovely lunch and a quick stop at Flemings, LTD, and Irish store to look around. They have a very nice selection and Kate, Betty Gavin and I all got a couple of things. I found some decaf Berry's tea and bought some of the heather and moss soap that I do love the scent of.

We all gathered in a meeting room at the Comfort Suites at about 5PM for a mixer. We shared some wine and crackers and cheese and good company, introducing ourselves for those who had not met each other. Then we went out for a lovely dinner at Popeye's along the lake in downtown Lake Geneva.

Yesterday we also had a full, relaxing and stimulating day.

Our main speaker, in the morning, was Patricia Monaghan. Patricia is a poet, author and teacher who gave us a wonderful talk describing the four Celtic Seasons, and related them to the four provinces and their attributes. Did you know that the fires that the Irish used to build at the top of the hills at the beginning of the seasons represented the Eyes of the Godess. She also said that mobile phones were made for the Irish so they never have to be silent. She suggests that we go to Ireland on St. Brigid's day in February. The weather is in the 40s and 50s - certainly better that it is here - and the prices are rock bottom. Sounds like fun to us. I will, of course, have to see what is going on in our lives at that time.

I bought one of her books. The Red Haired Girl from the Bog. The Landscape of Celtic Myth and Spirit.

Then we had lunch, again down town. We were able to have breakfast at the hotel. It was a good breakfast too. Always a warm entree and the ability to make waffles along with fruit, juice and different breads and sweet rolls.

The afternoon was divided into two sessions. The first half offered psychic readings for those who wanted them Or people could listen to Kate, Brigid O'Malley and me read poetry and discuss them. Brigid is charming. She was a nun at one time and now teaches and is on the board of the Irish Center in Chicago. She read poetry from a couple of collections of women poets. She picked several poets, gave biographies and then read a poem or two from them - some in Irish and with the translation if that was how they were presented.
Kate and I presented mainly our own work though I explained how my family had such talent and read pieces from my brothers and my Dad then going into my own. I tried to give a bit of background to the poems for the meaning. Kate read her poems and also gave background on the time and reason for the writing. We are different as day and night in our creative process but everybody seemed to enjoy the session and we did too. It is such fun to share a creation.

The second half of the afternoon was "Learning how to Pamper yourself." I was not interested in that and Joan Kramer, one of our Plymouth members had offered to do a reflexology treatment for me so I took advantage of the time and did it. I was truly relaxed after that and slept like a rock last night.

Dick and Richard and Brenda all had a good weekend. They all seemed to have a good time and I did not have to worry at all. Chelsea did OK. Actually she even got a couple of extra walks too. They brought me an absolutely gorgeous hanging basket with Purple Petunias. My first potted plant of the year. It will look beautiful hanging out front. I have a couple of daffodils blooming and the tulips are about to open. So things are getting more springlike. Tomorrow I will look to the pictures and post one or two from the gathering for you all to see.

Kate had a friend design a pretty bracelet of colored crystals and silver that match the colors of our CWI tartan. It is really lovely.

Guess that is all. It is good to be home and I think I am ready to crawl into my very own bed and see if big Oscar will join me.

Love

Mary