December 1st - A long-awaited day!

Why long-awaited?  Find out down below the fold...and not because it's unimportant!

First, I see that my last few posts have been basically the same location here in Port Wing.  And my excuse for that is this...for those of us enamored by--and feeling blessed--to be living up here...it seems there is always something to see.  Take yesterday, for example.  Sitting out there on the ice ridge is an eagle.  My iPhone camera is not quite adequate for this zooming situation, but his white head shows he is definitely an eagle.  And watch what comes next...

I got into my car, because it was cold, and I looked up to see him flying away with something white in his beak.  Not sure if it was a seagull or what, because I didn't seem him dive after anything.  Again, not zoomed enough, but still cool.

And today, it's even colder (8˚ at 3:30pm or so says my car) but seeing all the ice chunks out in the lake intrigued me.  So I took another walk along the pier.  So beautiful.  And see the moon?

I decided to walk out a little bit farther (further?) today and this is what I found.  Ice!  Waves must have splashed up and over at some time recently.  Or else it's wind-blown down to ice.  So...I stopped, looked around, took a couple pictures, and turned around to go back where the traction was better!

View to the right - northeast.

View to the left - northwest.

Now, the reason that this is a long-awaited day.  Today is the day that Leann's sister, Kristi, is finally able to have the surgery to remove the cancerous areas in her pelvis, recurrences after her original colorectal cancer back in January, 2013.  But this time she's in Rochester with her team of Mayo surgeons, doctors, and other specialists.

In the past year Kristi has undergone two rounds of chemotherapy over 16 weeks from April to July (done near her home in Fargo, ND), 5 1/2 weeks of radiation treatments in September and October--every day for 28 days minus the weekends--done at Mayo, numerous scans and doctors' appointments at Mayo, all leading up to her surgery day today.

Her team consisted of a surgery oncologist, urologist, vascular surgeon, and radiologist, and a host of others in support.  A final part of the surgery today was doing a blast of intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) after all of the cancer was removed to try to get any remaining cancer cells in that area.  And surgery went just fine!  She's visiting with Leann and their other sister, Sandy, tonight and she was soon to take her first little walk still this evening!  And when I asked if she had her post-surgery pain button this time like she had in Fargo, I was told that they do pain management differently there using no narcotics.  Evidently they've found that people heal faster using this plan.  Amazing!

We're so thankful for the skills, knowledge and expertise shown to her in this process, and so proud of her and how she has dealt with everything she has gone through the last couple of years.  And we hope she will make this the first day of the rest of her life!  She deserves all the best!

And I'll try to find some different photo scenery tomorrow!

Those darn crows!

Big storm last night, some rain, lots of wind, but nothing seemed damaged until...I checked on our raised garden beds.  Carnage in the green beans!

Something pulls the seedlings out, nipped them in half on the stems, and left it looking like this.  And we're blaming the crows!  Usually when I plant seeds, I used 2 or more for each plant...it allows for my possibly poor planting techniques, and then I thin them after they come up.  But did I do that this time?  No, one seed per plant so no extras for after the crows attacked.  I replanted the ones that were still whole and threw in some more seeds for another try.   

And then Leann made this frame--we draped the netting over the top, netting that we use to cover the grapevines in the fall until we pick the grapes.  If anything, the crows will fly in and get twisted up in the netting.  Oh well...

 This afternoon for Father's Day, Leann found a good spot for the metal sculpture she bought as a memorial for her Dad who passed away last November.  She was created by Sara Balbin and we bought her from Hoth-Lee Art Gallery here in town.  And she's reading and has dragonflies flying around her.  Perfect!

And, strangely enough, we had a power outage late this afternoon that lasted for five hours!  It wasn't really stormy in our area when the power went out, but we heard a tree went down on a power line west of town.  That doesn't sound like a 5-hour incident though; Xcel usually gets it back on pretty fast.  We went down to our friends at the Gallery where eventually we had quite a gathering of friends waiting for the power to return.

After the storm...

An indigo surprise

The day is a blur from driving 200 miles to Leann's hometown in central Minnesota, and back home tonight, for the funeral of a member of her extended family.  

But what's clear is our memory of this indigo bunting that appeared on our bird feeder this morning before we left.  What a surprise to look up and see that!  

We made it a quick trip today because we are going back this weekend for a nephew's wedding happening in the same family.  Sometimes things just don't happen according to anyone's plan.

Short blog...tired!  

Quarry Beach fun and let's "Just Dance"

It may be a record for us up here, but we had the first "beach-y" trip to Quarry Beach today, May 25, Memorial Day weekend.  Leann's nephew was satisfied just playing in the sand, but as you can see, some people are in swimming - Lake Superior, May 25 (again), temperature still below 40˚!  Makes my bones ache just thinking about it!  That white stuff in the water is pollen, not ice.  The ice is further down the beach!

After dinner tonight I turned on the Wii, put in the "Just Dance" game and we watched our future dancer rock out!  We had recently watched a video of him in his class music program, and I just knew Wii dancing was going to be the game for him!  He's a natural!  I always have to concentrate on either what the arms OR the feet are doing; he was able to do both and collect lots of points!

What a beautiful day!  I think the temperature got above 80 for the first time and it was a perfect summer day.  Tomorrow is the Memorial Day observance at the cemetery, remembering those from our town, no longer living, who have served in the Armed Forces in past years.  Maybe the rain will hold off until later in the day!

Chickens are roosting but no eggs for sale!

Back in my college days at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, I had a friend, Marie, who I came to know in my German classes.  I was majoring in German and she was a German minor, English major, so we always had two or more German classes together every semester.  In all our classes our German teachers referred to us as Fräulein Larson (me) and Frau ______ (her last name--she was married), and to this day we still call each other by these names.

As I said, Marie was married and lived in a big farm house in a little town a few miles north of campus.  I went to visit her once sometime just after we graduated and by then she had a son and...chickens!  And we went out to her chickens and collected eggs, and I was hooked.  I wanted chickens!  

Now for 35+ years I've been mentioning to anyone near and dear to me that I want to have chickens.  So for Christmas I opened up a big box to find...chickens!

Using gourds that Leann's sister, Kristi, had grown out in the Red River Valley of western Minnesota, Leann cleaned up the gourds and painted them into all sizes of chickens for me.  The wattles(?), combs and beaks are made out of baked Sculpey clay.

And then the chickens needed a "coop."  Sometime last fall we had dragged an old funny-color-green kitchen-type cabinet out of the basement of the old house.  Back in the day, 1940's and before, my grandparents and family did much of their day-to-day living in the basement.  The dining room and the "parlor" were only for company or church meetings.  So my grandmother had a cook stove down there, and this cabinet with a matching long table and benches, most likely homemade.

Leann cleaned up the cabinet, reconfigured it a little, painted it up white and now it is a chicken coop on our front porch.  She had to devise a way to attach the chickens to their straw nesting material or the first big wind would blow them away.

So now I have chickens.  And I don't have to worry about coyotes or wolves or eagles carrying them off either.  Trying to get eggs will be a challenge, however!

So how are things here in way-north Wisconsin?  This is the view looking our front door...just over from the chickens.  That's a snowdrift and that thing sticking out of the snow is a yardstick.

Zooming in to the yardstick we see this:

And we are supposed to get another 6 inches or more of snow tonight.  

NOT April Fool's!