Afternoon Delight

Each spring we help my Mom and Dad put in their Catalina sailboat in the lake for the season and then in the fall we reverse the process.

Life has been full the past few years so we haven’t had time to actually go for a sailboat ride during the summer, just partake in the launching process.

This spring we vowed that this summer would be different we would actually go for a ride on the boat. Several years ago we went for a ride on Dad’s last sailboat, a catamaran. It was a beautiful Fourth of July weekend. We turtled the boat and ended up spending a bit of time floating in the lake with lots of boats zipping around us until another boat stopped to help us. We formulated a plan to upright the boat and were on our way again. I was hoping we wouldn’t have a repeat of the previous experience.

Summer has come and gone here in Minnesota and no sailboat ride until yesterday. While at a birthday party for my sister on Saturday evening my husband made plans with my Dad for our sailboat ride. Yesterday afternoon after church we headed over to Mom and Dad’s for our ride. It was just a quick ten minute ride to their home.

When we arrived Mom was already had treats ready for our ride, a bottle of wine, cheese and crackers. We walked down to the dock and started getting ready for the ride. we motored away from the dock and about a hundred feet from shore and Dad started putting up the sails. First the main sail then the jib and we were off.

We tacked back and forth across the lake with the sails full under clear blue skies. It was a perfect not too windy day. We could see seagulls gathered on the lake as well as the loons as we sailed with fishing boats here and there.

The afternoon brought back many wonderful memories of Dad at the helm and family times spent together on the boat.

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To Clean or Not to Clean

This morning as I sit in my recliner marks the beginning of a new state in my life. Yesterday my daughter and grandson moved full-time into their apartment along with my other daughter. Today is the first day of classes in the fall semester at college for them.

As I was reading my emails this morning and looking around my all too quiet house I noticed the french doors for my sun room. They stand open from the livingroom inviting you to enter the sun room. At the angle they are open and where I am sitting I can see through the panes of glass. They are completely covered with tiny fingerprints and nose prints.

My grandson loves to play in the sun room. Most of his toys are in there. After he learned how to open and close the doors he would close one side and stand inside the porch and make faces at us through the glass as we sat in the livingroom. His version of Peek A Boo.

We had a great last couple of days with my daughter and grandson. We left Thursday evening for the race track where my husband was racing in a two-day event. My daughter and grandson came with us. It was a long two days for my daughter to entertain her son and figure out nap times and bed times away from home but she was good sport about it.

Thursday evening my husband won the “The King of Dirt” title in his division so he was pretty excited and my grandson was so excited about the trophy that he gave it a hug.

The second night of racing didn’t go as well with my husband being hit late in the race and spun into the wall. It will be the end of racing until some major repairs are made.

Yesterday morning I watched as my daughter loaded up her car to leave. Most of their things are already at the apartment but all the favorite last minute items were loaded last. We got our hugs and kisses goodbye and watched them leave to start a new chapter in their lives.

I think I will leave the window pane just as they are for a little while…..

 

It Doesn’t Get Much Better

Friday evening my husband and I took our daughter and her son with us to the racetrack. My husband hasn’t raced much this summer but he had his truck ready to go and we went.

When we arrived at the track after an hour and a half drive first thing on our list was to unload the truck and get something to eat.

My grandson’s favorite is a corn dog which I knew they had at the food stand. And yes, that little guy did eat the whole thing although it took him awhile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After we unloaded the truck we headed over to the pit grandstand to watch a couple of heat races before my husband’s turn to race.  Jack didn’t take his eyes off the track for a minute and was concerned when they had to send a tow truck out to take a car off the track that had spun out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack’s favorite movie is “Cars”.  This was like seeing “Cars” in person. He pointed at everything and talked in his two-year old jibberish about everything he saw and every other word that came out of his mouth was “race car”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Squeals of delight were heard as the racecars turned corner number four. Our night was cut short by storms rolling in. We ended up running to the truck in pouring rain and driving in torrential rains home. We will head back to the track on Thursday for  “King of the Dirt” night.  Hopefully he will get to see Grandpa race.

 

 

 

Sticks and Stones

Tonight after work I was outside taking clothes in off the line when my daughter and grandson got home. He stayed outside with me while she unloaded her car. While we were outside he found a stick and walked around in the yard poking the ground and everything with his stick until he broke it in two.

No tears were shed when he broke it. He just picked up the other half and walked around to the side of the yard where the steps come down off the porch. He started using his sticks like drumsticks on the bottom step.

After drumming for a while he put his sticks down and headed to my garden. When he got there he was distracted by something up above.

When I looked up to see what he was pointing at I saw a flock of birds flying overhead. I’m not sure what kind they are but this was just a small portion of what flew overhead.

After the birds passed by Jack picked up some small stones from my garden and promptly trotted down to the lake. When he got to the shore he threw one stone in and then the other. He turned around and headed straight back to my garden for a second and later a third set of stones to throw in the lake until the mosquitoes drove us inside for the rest of the evening.

Who needs fancy store-bought toys when you’ve got sticks and stones?

 

Can I Speak Without Pictures? Maybe…

This past week I have been at a loss for words. Not because I didn’t have any to share but because I had no new pictures to go with them.

On a recent trip to Montana I lost the battery charger for my camera. I tried ordering another battery online but haven’t found anyone who stocks them. I thought it would be great to have a second charged up battery . I finally ordered a new charger for my camera but it was over a week ago and it’s not here yet so no new pictures with a dead battery in my camera.

Today has been a difficult day. I started loading up furniture and belongings of my two daughters and grandson into a pickup truck and trailer at 7am this morning. My daughters are starting the process of moving into their own apartment. We hit the road for the 45 minute drive to their apartment at 7:40am. By noon we had my truck, trailer and each of their cars unloaded into the second story apartment.

Our oldest has been in her own apartment for the past four years while she has attended college but home every summer to work. Our youngest who is 20 has never left home before and has a son that will be two next month.  They will be moving into the apartment full-time in about three weeks.

Tonight when I got home from work the house is a mess with things half packed, half sorted just the way we left it this morning but with a silence that is deafening remaining. I started picking things up and putting them away trying to keep a positive attitude. Thinking thoughts like the house will stay cleaner longer, there will be less dishes to do and less laundry for sure. Since I’ve done such a bad job in cooking meals lately I won’t mention less cooking to do.

The girls and my grandson will come home on the weekends they assure me to do laundry. My sons now both in their own homes have busy lives between their homes, work and other interests.  I struggle between feeling of wanting to put everything personal in the house away so I’m not reminded that they are not here or to start dragging out more pictures and stuff to fill the void.

On my livingroom walls I stencilled the words “There’s no place like home” many years ago, delighted that we were able to buy a home on a lake for our family to enjoy while our kids were growing up. Now it’s the last place I feel like being. If my husband said let’s go here or there…it wouldn’t matter where, I would go with him anywhere just to escape.

I’m excited for my kids to head out on their own. That’s the way it should be and I’m proud of them but does it have to hurt so much?

 

Red, White, and Blue

Tonight I put to bed another Fourth of July weekend. The anticipation and planning for the holiday weekend is always exciting.

The hard part is trying to fit every thing and everyone into the plans for the weekend. My daughters were especially excited about the weekend and planning all the food we would need and they made out a grocery list.

It’s a good thing they were thinking about meals because it was the last thing I felt like doing after a long VERY HOT week of working.

Part of their plans for the weekend was getting up early to go and pick strawberries at the local strawberry farm just around the corner from our home. We set our alarms for six am this morning and headed over to the farm. I would have liked to sleep in but picking strawberries is an annual tradition. Not necessarily on the 4th of July but each year we go picking strawberries.

This year grandson Jack accompanied, my husband, two daughters, one boyfriend and me to the farm. It was a beautiful morning with lots of beautiful berries.

Happy Fourth of July to all and a special thank you to all our service men and women serving and to all those who have done so faithfully in the past.

 

 

Repetition: Disdain or Delight

Two weeks ago I made a trip to our local library to pick up some books to read to my grandson. We exhausted the books at home I was looking forward to some new reading material. I brought home ten books that were all new to me.

In the mix of books was Cock-A-Doodle-Moo by Bernard Most. It has become my grandson’s favorite. When I come home from work he greets me at the door with the book and walks over to the recliner and starts patting it for me to sit. He backs himself up to the chair for me to pick him up to read the book to him.

In the morning he searches for my library book bag for the book. When I ask him if I should read him the book he squeals with delight and follows the same routine as the evening. When I finish reading it to him he says “More”. I don’t know how many times I’ve read the book to him but there are parts in the book when I tell him to help read the book he says “Moo” where he should for the story.

As an adult I am often bored by predictable behavior. When did that change? As a teenager I would listen to songs on my record player over and over again until I knew all the words. In high school I worked hard at memorizing my parts for Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Arsenic and Old Lace. It required lots of repetition but it was okay because it was for a reason.

Everyday my mind craves new information. I want to learn and am easily frustrated with hearing the same old thing. Oh that I could find delight in hearing and seeing the same old thing as my grandson does when I read him the same book day after day even when there are many other choices.

 

Dad’s Awesome Green Machine: 400209+ miles

Last week my brother was at our business getting some new tires on his truck when he said Dad’s van needs a tow from Dad’s house to the shop.

Shortly before noon I drove the flatbed truck over to their home and loaded up the green machine.

The van looks ordinary enough but it is far from ordinary for this reason:

Dad's 1995 Pontiac Transport Odometer on 6-5-2011

This was a picture of the odometer on Dad’s van when we delivered it back to his home on Sunday after we got it back on the road for him. When I picked the van up on last Tuesday he handed me a piece that had  fallen off the motor or so he thought. Also the accessory belt was laying on the front seat of the car. He said when he was picking up his sailboat from the storage area that he heard a loud noise and stopped to check it out when he found the piece that had come off the van. He continued to drive the van home.

After some investigation at our shop my husband determined that the piece had come off the end of the waterpump and that is what he needed to get the van back on the road for Dad. My husband talked to Dad and asked if they should fix the van. My brother thought we ought to take it to the local junkyard. Dad said fix it. So one of our mechanics put on a new waterpump and started filling the radiator with antifreeze and about as fast as he put the antifreeze in, it came out. Apparently when Dad drove it home from the storage area it got a bit hot and the 400, 000 miles radiator burst one of its seams from the heat.  The van would need a new radiator.

On a vehicle with that many miles my husband opted to find a used radiator for the van. We had one on a parts vehicle in back with only about 140,000 miles on that radiator for about half the cost of the new radiator so my husband put it on the van, filled it up with antifreeze and we delivered it back to Mom and Dad’s home on Sunday morning.

Dad bought this van from my husband in the late 1990’s, I think it was 1998.  Dad could tell you the year but I don’t remember. Dad and Mom are the second owners of the van and Dad loved the van from the beginning because it has a plastic body. It wouldn’t show rust. I’m not saying there isn’t any rust on the vehicle just that you won’t see it on the body but if you look underneath….

When the van hit 100,000 miles Dad was sure to tell us what a good vehicle the van has been. Then it was onto 200,000 miles he let us know it was still hanging in there. Next came 300,000 miles. Dad uses his van daily almost like a truck. He hauls his golf clubs and whatever else he needs for the day. Last summer when he was running for Congress he and my Mom hauled campaign literature and yard signs with them in the back of the van as they dropped literature in the district.

Dad will tell you that the van is still running the original motor but he did have to rebuild one transmission on it and later replace the transmission. It has served him well over the past 14 years or so. The last van that Dad owned didn’t have 400,000 plus miles on it when he quit driving it but it had many awesome trips to exciting places. Dad drove Mom, me and my four brothers and sisters all the way from Minnesota to El Salvador and back in that van one Christmas vacation in 1978.

The odometer read 400209 when we dropped it off on Sunday but its more than that by now and its “On the Road Again” like the old country western song.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fishing: It’s a Grandpa Thing

Last evening while we were watching grandson Jack we decided to dig a few worms from my garden, grab a fishing pole, headed down to the lake and dropped a line.

This was my grandson Jack’s first fishing attempt. Grandpa and Jack got the worm on the hook and threw the line off the dock, watched and waited until the bobber did this …

The above picture is my entry for the Weekly Photo Challenge: Water. I’m multi-tasking instead of posting a separate post for the challenge.

Next Jack had to come and show Grandma his fish.

Jack was a little concerned about his fish. Grandpa asked him if he wanted it back in the water and Jack said “Yes!”

So Jack helped Grandpa put the fish the back in the water.

Then Jack watched as it swam away.

Hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.

 

Decisions, decisions…

Last evening I received a phone call from my Uncle Harold in Illinois. He called to congratulate my on earning my private pilot’s certificate. He’s an old railroad man but he is also a pilot.

He called to chat for a bit about flying. He is in his 80’s. He quizzed me a bit on my flying, asking me about VFR minimums and weather. It was sort of a mini flight review. He used to be a CFI and was anxious to impart his wisdom for which I was happy to receive.

I asked him how he heard of me earning my PPL and he said he thought Aunt Dorothy told him.  Now Aunt Dorothy lives in Forsyth, MT about 500 nautical miles west of where I live in Central Minnesota. My mom’s family is spread out from Illinois, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Arizona, and a few other states but this summer there is a family reunion in June at my Aunt Dorothy’s. He ended his conversation with “We’re looking forward to seeing you at the reunion!”

The reunion in on a Saturday and I have been contemplating renting a plane and flying out for the reunion. There is an airport in Forsyth, MT. I checked and there are several other airports along the way. It would be a little over five hours of flying from home to Forsyth. It would be a true “cross-country” flight in my book.

While in flight training we had to plan a long-cross country flight. It did not take the kind of planning that would be required for a five-hour flight. I’m excited at the prospect of taking the flight if the weather permits.

One thing I know for sure from flying is that weather is unpredictable. So while I would love to fly to Montana if the weather isn’t good, I won’t. This means that I will have to be watching the weather for days in advance to look at the weather patterns and make a decision. If the weather is at all iffy that means hopping in the car and driving instead of flying. If I wait too long to decide then I won’t make it to the reunion.

It’s a common dilemma for pilots. Some make bad decisions and put themselves and others at risk because they have their heart set on flying and not driving or they don’t allow enough driving time to attend an event if the weather seems to turn.

Even if the weather looks good for my departure time and I decide to fly there is always the possibility of not making the reunion because of the weather changing in some part of my route. If the weather doesn’t look good all the way through to the destination and back at the time of my departure, I will have to cancel and miss the reunion.

Between now and the reunion I have to decide. What is more important, attending the reunion or flying? If it is attending the reunion then I had better plan on driving and allow enough time for it. If it is some flying time then I will choose to fly to Montana for the reunion but if the weather is not great then I will cancel my flying time and look for another flying adventure at another time.

I hope the stars align for some flying.