Gypsies EV Melotte

Nice couple of little storms came though this morning. The first at 3:30 and the second at 4:50.  They dropped about 0.18 inches of rain to get the ground moist.

Today (actually tomorrow) we start a 7 day warming trend culminating in an 88 degree day nest Thursday and every other day there will be a chance of a pop up thunderstorm.  No big deal.

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A few more things from my mom.

Gypsies

Most summers a band of gypsies came through, usually in five or six wagons. The wagons were hung with clanking pots, pans, pails and tools, we could hear them coming while they were half a mile away. The wagons weren't as colorful, or the women as beautiful, or the men as handsome as they're pictured in storybooks and movies, but they were colorful and beautiful and handsome enough to be exciting.

They would camp across the road from us in an untilled part of Emil Lemke's land. Mr. Lemke had made an arrangement with them. They could camp on his land for two nights and in return they wouldn't steal his chickens. He still locked up his tools though.

We had no portable livestock, but when we saw them coming we all stopped whatever we were doing and hurried about picking up any loose axes, saws, hoes, shovels or pails and locked them in the tool shed. The haywagon was moved into the barn and locked in. The washing, wet or dry, was pulled off the line and carried into the house, and the clothesline untied from the posts and brought in. Farms were never so neat as when the gypsies were around.

Pa  scoffed at the idea that gypsies stole children, but in our early years Ma wouldn't allow Wayne or me to be seen outside during their stay, and Don and Gilbert were supposed to stay south of the house, away from the road.

Being summer, all of our windows would be wide open, and we could hear them from the house, but the grove was between us and the camp, so we couldn't see them.

I was obsessed with curiosity about them. Not only did they seem romantic and glamorous to me, but with my pre-school-age logic and overactive imagination I reasoned that maybe sometimes gypsies did steal babies. Or maybe sometimes they traded them. Maybe Ma had left her baby girl outside one day when they were here and they had taken Ma's baby and left one that nobody wanted in her place. If I was really a gypsy child that would explain why I didn't have red hair and didn't look like anybody else in the family and why I never felt I belonged to them. Maybe there was a little red haired girl just my age over there. Then I would know.

When everyone in the house was asleep I went out through the window and hid in the grove to look them over.

There was a cooking fire, dying down now, and a lot of grownups talking in a language I didn't understand. There was a man playing a harmonica. There were a couple of children sitting on the steps of one wagon, but I couldn't see the color of their hair. Nobody was looking in my direction, so I quickly crossed the road and hunched down behind a bush.

Somebody grabbed my shoulder and pulled me up. It scared me out of my wits. I thought I was being stolen.

The man who held me just stared at me. A woman called out something to him and he answered, they called back and forth several times but I couldn't understand them.  I felt  paralyzed. Then he turned and spoke English to me. He told me not to be afraid, no one would harm me. He said his mama wanted to see me. He lifted me over the fence and led to an old woman in a rocking chair.

The woman peered closely at me. My heart was pounding and I couldn't get my breath.

She told me that her son hadn't meant to frighten a little girl. He had seen someone there and had thought it was the boy who had come earlier and teased their girls. She asked if  I knew a boy, bigger than me, with curly black hair and dark eyes who could run like a rabbit. I got my breath back then and said, "That's Gilly. He's my brother." Somehow, being there wasn't so scary if Gilbert had been there first.

The man knelt beside me and apologized for grabbing me like that. He said he had a little girl about my age and wouldn't want anyone to frighten her like that. Instantly I stopped being scared. I asked, ''Does she have curly red hair?" He seemed surprised, but said, no, she had black hair. Are there any little girls with curly red hair here?  "No, They all have brown or black hair. Why?" I  wouldn't tell him.

The old woman asked how I happened to be up so late. I admitted, with awful shame, that no one knew I was out. I'd crawled out through the window. That brought about a  lot of laughter, but it wasn't mean laughter. It was almost as if they thought it was clever of me.

She told me I had better go home before someone woke up and missed me. How would I get back in the house? I told her about the big rock beneath my window, and they were still chuckling when I crossed the road and made my way back to my bed.

Nobody ever knew that I'd gone over there, and the next time the gypsies came through I watched them from the grove, but I must have grown up a little too much to be that brave again. Besides, I didn't see the kind old woman anywhere, and I already knew they had no red-haired children.

          EV Melotte

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Sugarfoot - 19 years

Sugar, your bones have grown fragile, and fine

and you rest on each step of the stair,

but your eyes are still kitten eyes, gentle and wide

as if age caught you up unaware.

You nibble your meals, you whisper your purr,

and then dream-doze the rest of the day.

You're as light as a feather-cat, soft in my arms.

Oh, Sugar . . . 

sweet Sugar . . .

you're drifting away . . .

from the book Snapshots Along The Way   

 EV Melotte

Happy/sad

Last night I tied for low net again in golf league and it seems we are in first place.  I also seem to be CRUSHING the ball off the tee and according to Golf Shot had one drive perfectly down the middle for 245 yards. YIKES.   I'm not trying to brag as it's taken 62 years to figure out how to get off the tee . . at least temporarily.  Not sure a few weeks really shows I have improved but a 45 and 48 back to back FOR ME . . .is good.

I was told it takes about a year to get used to new clubs which I never considered when I purchased adubya's clubs midway through LAST year.   In fact it's been just about one year exactly.  hmmmm   maybe there is something to that.

HOWEVER - as I was sitting in Door Creek I looked at Facebook and saw that my friend adubya had decided that today would be the day that his best friend and companion for many years would cross the rainbow bridge.  I immediately had my emotions change to grief. My eyes watered up as I thought about my last day with Blake.

It's the curse of pets.  I suppose parrots feel this way with humans as they live much longer then we do.

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Sugarfoot #4

We're housecats together
My Sugar and me.
We're as snug and contented
As two cats can be.
We gave up the Outside
With nary a tear,
Cause all of the things
We like best are in here.
We like
Pillows and sunshine,
And flowers in vases,
And windows to look through,
And small, cozy places,
And leisurely bathing,
And things that smell good,
Like roses, and catnip,
And most kinds of food,
We like
Music that's quiet,
And sharing a lap,
And yawning and stretching,
And taking a nap,
And what we like most,
What this is all about,
Is we like being In,
With the bears all locked Out.

   --EV Melotte

++

My mom was diagnosed with lupus which made sunlight a problem for her.  Oddly when she had her multiple strokes, lupus not only went away but she forgot that she was an avid smoker as she never had another cigarette.    Weird.

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Awesome stretch of days coming up - typical summer weather for the next few weeks. Low 80s middle 80's with a few T-storms now and again but nothing all day!

See ya

 

Sugarfoot #3

Fort Atkinson Water Tower - build 1901?

I have nothing to say.

I have already received some praise AND flak for even mentioning the question of "what will we do with the water tower once a crap load of money has been used to fix it".  Do we let it stand for 30 more years and have nobody looking at it?  Many people don't even know where it is!

Or does the city and HLPC spend some major money to make this a viable landmark.

Fort Atkinson's water tower (on the right) was fixed and now people can go inside it 12+ times a year.  It took 15 years and $700,000 though.  OUCH!!

I'm all for fixing it as long as it does not go back to what it was, a forgotten pillar of the past that very few people ever go to look at.  YES - it is only one of 5 left standing in Wisconsin so I say make it something people will talk about and actually visit, if, someone is going to spend some major money on it.

Just my early morning thought process.
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Sugarfoot #3

Sugar came to comfort me
When she saw that I was crying,
Put her paws around my neck,
Lay against me softly sighing.
I had trusted where I shouldn't
I'd been badly hurt that day,
Sugar's whiskers stroked my face
And gently wiped my tears away.

What does Sugar know of grief?
What does she know of betrayal?
All the pain she's ever felt
Was a rudely stepped-on tail.
Still she answered to my need
Far better then did humankind.
I help her close against my heart,
Loyal friends are hard to find.

      --EV Melotte

Old Water Tower catastrophic event!

The facts as I know them.

Last Thursday Columbus had a large storm roll through about 5:30PM.  It seems lightning struck the Old Water Tower which in turn blew off the outer layer of bricks with mortar spreading over several houses.

The worry is a collapse with the 60,000 pounds of steel 60 feet in the air (numbers are approximate).

As you can see it doesn't LOOK bad, except for the 60,000 pounds of steel right above it.

SO - two houses have been evacuated as a precaution.  An engineer said the structure has been compromised but that is still just a gut reaction.   No one has been inside for a few decades and there are no plans to go on.

My brother who does this sort of thing said that in the late1890s the way things were built.  One layer of bricks for each story and towers were built VERY VERY good.  Over engineered.  HE says fixing will be a LOT cheaper then demo-ing.

My question is - if it Is fixed, what are we going to do with it. There is no need to fix it if it will just stand there being ignored for another 100 years ready to fall down again.

I talked to my buddy who is working the tallest crane in Madison for Fiendorf and said demo-ing would be REALLY hard and VERY expensive.  The economy is good that there are no construction people to spare.  (My home brew friend just put a bid out for a million dollar brewery in Sun Prairie and found this out with few takers - not enough construction people).

ANYWAY - the plan was to have the Fire Department fly a drone up there to get a better look at the outside.   More info when I hear anything.

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In other news - I came in 1st place last night in a 10 man league in Fan Duel and 97th place among 26,000 in tournament that got me into a bigger tournament next Monday.

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Sugarfoot #2

Spill of sunlight melting warm
beside a window.
Soft fur creature, throating
a vibrato of contentment.
Is this the swarthy hunter
who stalked the wily June bug
through last evening's twilight jungle?
Your eyes weren't made
of liquid love last night.

      -E.V. Melotte

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On other depressing news - The Japanese beetle is back and I see 4 trees on Avalon that will be dead soon because no one did anything to stop them.  The golf course has 11 trees on the 2 fairways that I can see that will soon be dead if they don't get their asses in gear.

Lindin (Basswood, Tilia) trees seem to be the meal of choice this year and you NEED to kill these bugs or they will kill your trees AND grass.  Once they leave the tree theo go into the grass and eat the roots.

Short term spray but long term spread Milky Spore on your lawn as it kills Jap beetles and helps your lawn.

Soon to be dead trees on Avalon.

Turnips? EV Melotte

Non-sports people can just skip this part.

I have gone to the dark side and entered Fan Duel and played my first Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) - Baseball . . . and doubled my buy in (almost).  I resisted but then I figured - it's like the wild west when online poker started . . . and I made a LOT of money when that began that adventure so I'll give it a try here.

Start at the lowest denomination and work my way up like Poker.  If I win tonight I'm going to the TWO DOLLAR games!!   Pretty lofty!!  I'm ALREADY up $1.80!!!!!

Actually there is a lot of interesting strategy, like stacking and looking at the current lines to find the good games.

COME ON CUBS, I need Arrieta to have a good game. I suppose everyone else is also taking Arrieta (or Syndergaard on NYMets) but my strategy is take the best pitcher available no matter what the price because in Fan Duel you only get one pitcher and he counts (hopefully) for about 33% of your score and fill in with the rest.

In Fan Duel you get $35,000 of play money each night,  Arrieta cost me $10,600 - A LOT.  But then I picked what teams will score the most runs and then picked multiple players from those games (stacking) AND made sure those players were opposite handed of the pitcher they were facing AND making sure no one was going against my pitcher AND my batters are playing in offense orientated ballparks

There are about 30 other strategies but I like those ideas . . AT THE MOMENT.

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Seems the old water tower took some major damage with the storms this weekend. It SOUNDS like the old girl had a death blow and is crumbling down.  There are emergency Council session  being planned for tonight

This is the inside of Fort Atkinson water tower. Same design and built around the same year but they fixed it up and it's a tourist attraction - sort of.

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Saturday we had 1.85 inches of rain.

Great weather coming next weekend - in the middle 70s Th, Fr Sat but also good chance of rain.

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151 highway news - there are talks about turning The 151 into a an freeway from an expressway from Columbus to Waupun .  The current "freeway" you can have many access points (like driveways).  Expressways are like Columbus to Madison.

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Snapshots from the past.  EV Melotte

Pa once had an opportunity to join a county crew for a few days work on the roads. Naturally he grabbed a chance to make a few extra dollars. When the job was finished the crew was offered the right to help themselves to all they wanted of a barrel of red clover seed. Pa took a generous share, knowing that red clover would improve our poor soil. He broadcast it liberally over an area that was to become a field after the stumps were pulled.

Either the foreman had brought the wrong barrel or Pa had misunderstood. He had broadcast turnip seed the whole field area came up packed shoulder to shoulder with turnips.

That year Pa sold our potatoes, which were a salable crop, and we lived out the year on a staple diet of turnips.

          --E.V.Melotte

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A kitten comes calling (Sugarfoot #1)

A kitten came calling, all scraggly and thin,
she cried at the door 'til we let her come in.
Once in she went running and searching about,
found the dog's dinner, ate it, and wouldn't go out.

So we made her a litterbox, gave her a dish,
stocked our cupboards with small cans of chicken and fish,
and tried very hard to convince our friends that
it was our idea, adopting a cat.

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Woman - EV Melotte

Woman - EV Melotte

I am warmth, I am sun
I am nourishing rain,
I am Woman,
I have work to do.

Your guns and your factories,
Your buildings and commerce,
Are only toys to amuse you.

Play with them, trade them,
Hoard them, destroy them,
It makes no difference.

Give me your seed.
And go play with your toys,
I am busy
For I am Woman,
I carry the future. 

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For those worried about the road conditions on 151 - this comes from alderman Andy Traxler's inquiries.

"Hello Mr. Traxler: we do have two upcoming projects that will substantially improve the pavement from Sun Prairie to Columbus.

Project 1111-03-70 will address the worst 2.4 miles in both directions. This section is the roadway both south and north of the CTH V interchange area between Sun Prairie and Columbus. The improvement will patch and asphalt overlay the northbound lanes, and fully replace the pavement of the southbound lanes. This project also includes the overlay and repairs to eight (8) structures within and outside of the 2.4 mile section. This project is currently scheduled for 2018 construction.

Project 1111-03-72 will address the pavement from CTH VV near Sun Prairie to STH 73 north of Columbus (except for the 2.4 mile section taken care of under 1111-03-70). The improvement will patch and asphalt overlay the existing pavement in both the northbound and southbound directions. This project is currently scheduled for 2019 construction.

No pavement work is currently programmed from IH 39 to Sun Prairie at this time.

Projects on USH 151 are reviewed, prioritized and scheduled based on a statewide review of all backbone routes (which includes all of the interstate system).

GREAT JOB Andy!!!

Now if we could raise the gas tax to get these done SOONER that would rock but the DOT has no money to fix roads so we will wait 2 more years.

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We missed a pretty big storm last night.  While Columbus was getting 0.68 inches of rain many parts of Madison were getting 4+ inches of flooding rain.

I took some unique images of the storms yesterday.  This was from the morning storms.

The below was from the afternoon storms.  I was getting crap blown into my eyes on this one.  You can see DJ on the deck.

And then the sunset!

Check out this chart of the action Thursday.  You can see when the two storms hit. I love the temperature drop on that second storm.  

Another thing to look at was the wind. We had a bump in velocity when the wind changed direction but once it came back to the south the gusts (little yellow dots) hit 48mph for a while. 

Going to be hot at least until Monday. I don't think we will hit a heat index of 100 today. 97ish around 3-4:00 and 95 Saturday but yesterday was the worst.  Yesterday the high dew point was 80.6 and high temp was 90.7 around 4:00 in the afternoon.

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I have to say something about immigrants!  According to a recent study - immigrants, IN REALITY, are more law abiding then your average American citizen.  So when Trump says they are killing Americans . . . .it's a lie.  They are more peaceful then Americans.

He also mentioned that there have been 50% more police killings then last year at this time.  Also a lie.  There has been one LESS killing.  68 last year at this time, 67 this year.

I could go on and one but no one is changing their minds. His speech last night was meant for his base - not for the rest of America. It was a REALLY depressing speech and according to him we need to build safe rooms because America is SUCH a horrible place to live.  

Plus he was Mr. Obvious over and over.  Lots of things he will do but never any actual ways to do it.

MAKE AMERICA AFRAID AGAIN 

Come on smart Republicans - take back your party.

The PROBLEM is that America will be doing fairly well on election day and MOST Americas are optimistic.  They are not buying into the doom and gloom Trump wants us to believe.

According to the latest polls Trump has a 40.1% of becoming president. But after conventions are not good times for polls.

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All of this "we want Trump because he is different" is exactly what happened in England with Brexit. They voted for Brexit because ANYTHING was better then what they had which is what Trump people are voting on.

WELL - England just had their first round of economic data and their economy is crashing - NOT riding high that the exit people thought would happen.

"July saw a dramatic deterioration in the economy, with business activity slumping at the fastest rate since the height of the global financial crisis in early-2009."

If you want to see your retirement funds and stock market crash and disappear - vote Trump. The stock market that runs this country LOVES the unknown.  LOL

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Turnips!

In case you missed it - By a vote of 4-2 Trick or Treat will be the Saturday before Halloween this year from 5 to 8(??).   Of course we will have to go through this all over again NEXT year which is ridiculous, but that is how it rolls.

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Last night I had my best round in golf league since August 8 2014 so I'm feeling pretty cocky.  Odd how putting well brings down the score - I wonder if anybody else knows this. HOWEVER - My first three drives were all in the 230 range and NEAR the fairway.  Of course the shots AFTER the drive were not as wonderful but . . . .small steps.

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This little guy has been running around our house lately.  It's a Brown Thrasher. He runs around like a cartoon Road Runner.  Sort of funny actually but he loves our garden near the patio.

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Turnips!  EV Melotte

Pa once had an opportunity to join a county crew for a few days work on the roads. Naturally he grabbed a chance to make a few extra dollars. When the job was finished the crew was offered the right to help themselves to all they wanted of a barrel of red clover seed. Pa took a generous share, knowing that red clover would improve our poor soil. He broadcast it liberally over an area that was to become a field after the stumps were pulled.

Either the foreman had brought the wrong barrel or Pa had misunderstood. He had broadcast turnip seed the whole field area came up packed shoulder to shoulder with turnips.

That year Pa sold our potatoes, which were a salable crop, and we lived out the year on a staple diet of turnips.

*************************

So we have some storms rolling in.  

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My opinion.

WHY would the GOP put Cruz on the stage.  WHY!  They have REALLY messed things up.  It's not that Trump is bad enough (for most people) but the constant belly flops and brain farts in all other things that is getting me.    

It shows that if you want someone that has zero experience in anything political - this is what you get. A disaster where nobody is actually saying HOW they will "fix" America (which ain't broken) but more how not to let someone else, who is more positive, try to do her job.

Once again the GOP is running a FEAR campaign.  Keep America Afraid Again.  

We are watching the death of the GOP as we knew it.  When I was a kid the Republicans were the adults in politics and the Democrats were the children.  It seems the roles have been switched. 

I pray the REAL Republicans can see what has happened and can work for the next decade or two to make themselves relevant again.  We need checks and balances and we need two parties that act like adults. 

But this is what happens in America politics.  One party in charge (The Republicans for the last bunch of years) take over for a decade or so and get full of themselves and go to far and then the other party takes over for a decade or two.   

And on a somber note - a Trump adviser came out and said Hillary Clinton "should be executed!" 

With all the deaths lately (a new one just today where police shot an unarmed black caretaker of an autistic individual as he lay on the ground with his hands in the air)  . . . this is an adviser to Trump? 

REALLY? calling for an execution?   Is this making America great again? 

*************

 

Snapshots from the Past - EV Melotte

Snapshots from the Past - EV Melotte

We had no electricity. Some cities had it, but the Rural Electrification hadn't reached Taylor County

My moms dad is far left - they SEEM friendly enough (RUN!)

yet, and wouldn't for many years. That lack alone made life in the 1930s a very different process from life today.

There were no electric lights, no radios, T.V.s, no CD players. No refrigerators, clothes dryers, microwaves, air conditioners, vacuum cleaners, toasters, thermostats, neon signs, Christmas lights. When it got dark we lit the kerosene lamps. When we got chilly we shook down the ashes in the wood stove, put a couple more chunks of wood in and adjusted the damper. Before that, of course, somebody had to have cut down the tree, lopped off the branches, sawed the wood into suitable lengths, split it into suitable widths, stacked it in the woodshed until it was thoroughly dry and carried it into the woodbox. Then, and only then, could you start a fire in the cookstove to make a cup of coffee or fry an egg.

There was no piped in gas, natural or propane. There was no piped in water, if you wanted water you
pumped it from the well. In winter you had to prime the pump with hot water first. If you wanted your water hot, you pumped cold water, carried it into the house, filled the big gallon tea kettle, put it on the lighted stove and waited for it to heat

There were no bathrooms. The toilet was a two-seater outhouse in the back yard, with an old Sears Roebuck catalog for paper. If you wanted a bath there was the laundry tub in the privacy of the night time kitchen, after the dishes were washed and the cream separated and the preparations for the next day's cooking were done. It took a lot of pumping and heating and hauling out, so we didn't take baths very often.

Photo says 1937 - Moms house

If you just wanted to wash your hands or face or brush your teeth there was a tin wash bowl that sat on a wash stand beside the communal bucket of water with it's communal drinking dipper. The waste water from that was poured into a pail that lived under the wash stand and was emptied as necessary, onto the tomatoes in summer and behind the woodshed in winter.

There was no garbage collection, no re-cycling collection, some farmers buried their trash, we had none. Peeling, parings, crumbs and any leftovers that couldn't be re-served went into a special bucket in the comer, along with wormy apples, rotting vegetables and all cooking water that wasn't used for anything else. This was all mixed with dried corm or whatever else we had, and was fed to the pigs, who grew fat and happy on it

Paper and cardboard started the fires and lined our galoshes in winter. There were no cans, all of our canned food was home canned in glass jars with reusable lids.

There were no plastic bags or containers. Plastic hadn't yet been invented.

Flour and sugar came in cotton sacks holding 50 or 100 pounds. The bags were washed, the seams picked out, and the fabric recycled into towels, diapers, underwear, and aprons.

Burlap feed sacks were washed and stitched into bed-sized pieces, laid several layers thick and tied together at six-inch intervals to make scratchy but warm thermal blankets. Shoes were resoled and reheeled at home, if the uppers split they were patched with tar. A pair of shoes would be passed down through all four children, as were the overalls, shirts, long johns and coats. Clothes were patched and repatched until they wouldn't hold together. Then the less worn parts were removed to make patches for other clothes, and the worn-out parts became cleaning rags. When the cleaning rags started literally dissolving in the cleaning water they were tossed on the manure pile to finish decomposing-they were all natural materials, nylon and polyester hadn't been invented--and they'd eventually be spread on the fields and gardens as fertilizer.

Everything that came onto the farm was used to the utmost and recycled into the farm.

I grew up accepting the verse, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." as being the Truth and the Law and the way the world is.

----EV Melotte

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Looks like Trick or Treat will be the Saturday before Halloween. The vote was 4-2.  It's a good day.

*************

My gardens are nearing full bloom.  The Clay Garden is totally out now with the White Daises  having their best year since I planted then 4 years ago. 

The Butterfly/hummingbird garden is about 70% blooming - I totally redid this garden this year.  When I hear gardeners talk about their gardens almost complete - I just stop listening as NO GARDEN is ever finished.

This one has many first year flowers which will take another 3 years to fully mature (the bottle left spiky things are brand new) .  All gardens are a work in progress that never finishes.

But the big ticket item that Elwood found and we planted is having a banner year.

WOW - do bees (and Jap beetles) love this one. 

Sadly the patio gardens do not bloom at the same time.  I'll have to look but this is from a month ago and there have been BIG changes (A photo tomorrow) .  The bird bath had to be moved as this is 100% grown over with flowers.

Hard to imagine when we moved in it was a blank slate - no trees, shrubs or anything just dirt.

STAY COOL!!! 

Big Pharma is running the house.

So my brother has been diagnosed with some form of prostate cancer and I have been reading a lot about this form.  Seems in England they have found that cannabis has been found to actually "cure" many forms of cancer.  Well . . . . at least in the rest of the world, not America where pharmaceutical (Big Pharm) companies have made million dollar donations to many of the Republicans now in charge.

There was a study done recently on States that have approved Medical Cannabis.  They looked at records since 2013 and found that prescription (oops) drug use in those medical marijuana States have dropped SIGNIFICANTLY.

In medical-marijuana states, the average doctor prescribed 265 fewer doses of antidepressants each year, 486 fewer doses of seizure medication, 541 fewer anti-nausea doses and 562 fewer doses of anti-anxiety medication and they prescribed 1826 fewer pain medications.  PER YEAR!!!  

If all 50 states approved medical marijuana, Medicare would save $2 BILLION a year.  Looks like Big Pharma will need to buy more right leaning politicians.  The left leaning ones are saying WE KNOW, WE KNOW, but the GOP has been in charge for the last 8 years.

Even Illinois, who's government is way way more f*cked up then Wisconsin has Medical Cannabis dispensaries.

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I got a new laptop.  The last thing I wanted to have was a touch screen - don't need it, just make things cost more.  So I got a laptop with a touch screen and I LOVE it.  I also love not having an actual  "hard" drive as they now have basically huge flash drives instead.

I have not purchased a computer for SEVEN YEARS.  My $400 desk top computer has been trouble free since 2008 but I need a new video card which would cost more then the computer itself so . . .a new desk top is in order but man - I hate switching computers with all the software and yada yada.

I'll stick with a laptop at the moment.

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I will not speak about Meliana Trump totally plagiarizing Michelle Obama's speech from 8 years ago . . .really?  parts were word for word? and you would not think people would notice?  sigh!!

It's like watching circus clowns trying to raise a circus tent.  I feel sorry for REAL Republicans of which I respect their thoughts.  Don't agree with them but I respect them.  But Tea Partiers and Trump?  no respect.  Of course now that Trump has been assimilated into the Tea Party with his Generic Tea Party VP choice all is well. They want 8 more years of screwing over small business.  

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Got something cool for bicyclists in Columbus that I HOPE the City Council will see fit to look into. Installing public bicycle repair stations (at no real cost to the city?)  Columbus is dropping the ball with alternative transportation as we seem to me more concerned with cars and trucks and not bikes (even though we are so close to one of the largest bike makers in the world).  NOT whining about roads but we need to put money aside for alternative transportation and are missing a real opportunity for bringing families to Columbus.

Columbus is having a growth spurt (first one in 200 years?) and we need to think about families and kids.

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I'm going to post 6 poems, one each day, that my mom wrote about a cat we had.  It's the most moving thing, FOR ME, that she ever put on paper - I'm not starting today though, just a word of warning.

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Prepare for EXCESSIVE HEAT starting Thursday. REALLY bad stuff.    95 degrees with dew points in the mid to upper 70s.  This is the extreme danger zone as the heat index could near 110.  It IS July you know.

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July - by EV Melotte from her book "Snapshots Along The Way" (which has been checked out twice from the library.  (Currently the #9502 in Books/Textbooks/Humanities/Literature/American Literature)

July

The summer burns hot on the fields of hay
And fragrance steams up from the clover.
I want to roll naked in the warm green grass
And welcome the sun all over.

             -EV Melotte

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And then there are the Russians who are about to be kicked out of the Olympics.

Seems they had a secret door during the Russian Olympics where they switched out the tainted urine samples and replaced them with clean ones.   Basically cheating in all 30 sports.  They were caught and now will be kicked out of the upcoming Olympics completely.

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Be cool!

  

Lake Mills and EV Melotte Snapshots

Over a decade ago when online poker was hot I made a friend of another blogger that lived in London.  We both wrote about poker and were on a few forums.  My friends wife was also a writer and we communicated back and forth on Facebook and blogs for the last 12 to 15 years.

They moved from London to Connecticut a few years ago and when the government made it illegal to put poker winnings into banks and they tried to stop online gambling (except horse racing because THAT was not gambling . . . it seems many GOP Senators raced horses.)  poker came to an end as we knew it (meaning we could only play against Americans who were smarter at poker and thus winnings were dampened).

ANYWAY - we kept in touch as she is a GREAT writer.

Saturday at the Lake Mills Art Fair Elizabeth and her family FINALLY met after communicating for over a decade online.

Her husband is in Sad Diego working on software that will be installed in ALL Cobra Drivers so he could not make it but it was so awesome to see Liz FINALLY!!!!

Her family is in Madison for some dance thing for a week and staying in Fort Atkinson.  A joyous occasion.

 

The fair was awesome.  Fourth best of the 38 fairs I have done and a littler nerve wracking as I guess I have a following from the amount of people that said they only come to the fair to see MY stuff (NO PRESSURE).

The interesting thing is that in previous years it was local people purchasing but this year a lot of vacationers and summer home people were purchasing for their lake houses which tells me the economy is improving.

We stopped at Solar in Waterloo for a pizza - REALLY good pizza and as we walked into the busy restaurant someone said - IT's THAT ARTIST and they were pointing at me!!!

Seems DJs cousin had seen us in Lake Mills - then they went to Solar for pizza and had never been there before.  He spotted artwork on the walls and and upon closer inspection noticed they were mine.  He talked to some people who were looking at the art work and told them he had JUST seen me.

Then 10 minutes later we walk in!  Pictures were taking and we all relaxed again!   It sort of reminded me of when I was in Oshkosh for Public Enemies and as I walked into a restaurant people literally started squealing "it's him it's him the blogger guy" and I had to pose for photos with about 15 separate people as everyone in the restaurant want a photo with me. WEIRD!!!  My closets experience to being a rock star!

ANYWAY.      

The crowds were down but purchasing was up. And of course the Deforest fair was completely different from the Lake Mills fair.

Peripheral was a big draw in all it's many forms along with Jonathan but got zero attention 3 weeks ago.

  And of course The Cows

In Deforest people went nuts with Neon Madison and Lake Mills it did not get a passing look!  So weird.  I sold 5 prints of this 3 weeks ago and not one Saturday 

Paoli Art in Mill Park is next in about 3 weeks.  

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From EV Melotte's Snaphots - Where "I" came from 

My father, Redmond Granzow, born 1893, came from a background of lowa farmland and the military. He joined the army about 1911 as a Private, leaving it a few years after World War I as a Second Lieutenant. During those years he had married a pretty

Spanish-Mexican widow with a young daughter, Gladys. He fathered two sons, Don and Gilbeby from his first wife, and then divorced her.

My mother, Gwendolyn Acheson, born 1898, came from an elegant background of lace tablecloths and silver tea sets. She had attended finishing school and secretarial college before working as a private secretary to a Vice-President of Allis-Chalmers.

They married in 1924. Their honeymoon was a camping trip to California to bring Don and Gilbert to Wisconsin to live with them. They drove a 1923 Model T truck with a high canvas top over the truck bed, very like a motorized covered wagon. I know nothing

else about that trip except that one hot day they left a supply of milk sealed in a metal can in the truck bed and after driving all day over rough roads they opened it to get the milk out for supper and found a large lump of butter swimming in buttermilk.

They bought an eighty acre plot of mixed woods and wasteland on Highway 64 in Goodrich Township. The neighbor whose pasture lay across the road allowed them to park their truck there and live out of it while Pa built a tiny one-room cabin, and they lived there while he built the little one-story house where I was born and lived for my first ten years.

He sided the house with rolls of roofing, dark red on the bottom half and dark green on the top half. It was an oddity in an area of two-story, white-painted farmhouses but it wasn't a foolish whim or a make-do move. Fifty-six years later, having been unlived-in and unmaintained for forty-one years, the siding was still in good condition and the house still sat four-square on it's stone foundation.

Pa dug the twenty-five foot deep well himself, by hand, walling it up with stones that were so plentiful that most of them came from the well itself. My mother, pregnant with with my older brother, Wayne, stood at the top turning the crank that let down the empty pails and drew them up filled with soil. My half-brothers, aged six and eight, hauled them away and dumped them, getting as much dirt on each other as possible. My mother must have been fearful every moment that the walls of the well would collapse leaving her a pregnant widow with eighty acres of mortgaged land and two wild stepsons.

It was a good well and it never went dry, although in the drought summer of 1936 the water was scarce and a bit muddy.

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Weather - temps will slowly ramp up all week coming to a head on Friday at 96 degrees and VERY humid.  Heat index will be nearing 110 Thursday and Friday.  Maybe a tad lower in the 107s but - that is still warmish. 

Some rain maybe Wednesday but that is it for the next 10 days!

Get your outside stuff done today!  

See ya! 

Shag and Prince

Big Brother is awesome this season - I know I know what most are saying but as us Big Brother fans always say "People just don't understand how much pure strategy is in this game".  All people see are personalities and not the game play.  And really - EVERY SINGLE PERSON this year is eye candy. 

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We had an ad-hoc meeting last night going over the long forgotten and very outdated financial policies of Columbus. Page by page we are fixing and adding guidelines. 

We also had a presentation of the 2015 audit report and I tell ya - Columbus is in it's best shape financially that it's been in in a long time and have almost recovered from the Enerpac situation when it comes to the GO Fund Balance as a % of Expenditures.  Our debt is under control and we are doing just fine.      

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Shag and Prince - A Snapshot from the 1930s 

This will be in a book I am creating from my moms writings. a companion to Snapshots Along the Way  (now at the Columbus Library). 

When my parents first bought the farm in Goodrich very few farmers in the area could afford tractors. The usual source of farm power was a team of horses. Pa started out with one horse, an old, cheap one who couldn't hold up under really hard work. Luckily Pa had a fondness for calves and couldn't bear to eat veal and hated selling those cute Brown Swiss bull calves. When our first cow, Pet, had a bull calf Pa castrated it, making it a steer, and while it was still small he improvised a calf-sized harness.

Carrying the harness, he led the calf to the cornfield and let him sample corn-on-the-stalk while be put the harness on him. Then he led, or more accurately, dragged, him back to the farmyard, hitched him to the empty stoneboat and faced him toward the cornfield

Pa told me that if he'd hitched him to the barn he'd have pulled the whole building to the cornfield. He said teaching him to pull to the cornfield was easy. Teaching him to pull away from it was harder.

That was Angelface, the first of our five oxen. I don't really remember Angelface, I just remember hearing about him.

A few years later Pet and our second cow, Bonnie, both had bull calves. Pa made the best of it. He castrated them both, named them Shag and Prince, showed them how to pull the stoneboat to the cornfield and then turned their apprenticeship over to Angelface.

After the first shock of being harnessed in-team with one or the other of those callow adolescents Angelface taught them their jobs very well.

When Shag and Prince were mature, they could do more than any tractor of the time could do. They worked from morning until night, plowing and harrowing and pulling the hay wagons, pulling logs out of the woods and stumps and rocks out of the ground. They were incredibly strong.

During one rainy spell a semi-truck went into a deep ditch down the road by Shadrack's farm. Shadrack's big horses couldn't budge it. Bergmann's tractor couldn't budge it. The tow truck from Athens couldn't budge it. By that time it had attracted a crowd. Someone said,"Get Granzow's oxen." Most scoffed at the suggestion, but Mr. Shadrack had seen the oxen at work. He came and asked Pa to try it. I went along .

Shag and Prince were hitched to the truck with Pa's heaviest logging chains. Pa gave them each a slap on the shoulder and said, "0.K., boys. Giddyup!"

They moved to the ends of the chains and pulled. Nothing happened. They leaned forward into their harness and p-u-1-1-e-d. Nothing happened.  They stopped and slowly, slowly they turned their heads, Shag to the right and Prince to the left, to see what they were hitched to. They started looking at ground level and slowly, slowly moved their eyes up to the top of the truck. They looked forward. They looked at each other. They set their feet, leaned into the harness and p-u-u-u-1-1-e-d and the truck moved a bit and slowly, slowly, those marvelous, wonderful, noble, beautiful oxen pulled that semi out of the ditch.

Mom and Wayne on Shag and Prince

Shag and Prince became local Legends In Their Own Time that day, and Pa put me up on Shag's back to ride home, I was the proudest kid in all Creation.

Those two oxen were the closest thing to pets that I had in Goodrich. I loved them, and Shag,calm, placid, mighty Shag was my favorite. When he was lying in the barnyard I would sometimes go out and lie on his back and almost go to sleep there. He wouldn't move until I got off and went around in front of him where he could see I was out of harm's way. Then he'd lumber to his feet, nuzzle my shoulder with his big nose and go off about whatever oxen do in their leisure time.

When Shag and Prince were in their prime Pa started training two more oxen, King and Kaiser. They were a matched set, nearly black and very handsome, but almost useless as a team. King was O.K., but if whatever they had to pull didn't move after their effort, Kaiser would just lie down.

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Art Fair this Saturday (tomorrow) in Lake Mills.  And if you don't want to see my stuff you MUST see a friend of mine Cassius Callender who is seriously world class and just down 5 canopy's from me.  I'm just glad we are not competing . . .except for best in show and he would CRUSH me. 

Next week when it's 95 degrees think of this image.   

People ask why I don't have a lot of winter shots.  Well, you try selling this when it's the middle of summer and 95 degrees. 

 

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A new bird has been flitting around our house lately - a Brown Thrasher.  Brown Thrashers have are prodigious song birds and have the largest repertoire of songs in North America with over 1,100 different songs.  I still have not been able to get a photo but here is won from the net.

We have been serenaded every morning to some wonderful bird music.

Have a great weekend.

Rod 

Transportation - EV Melotte

Gotta thank Clark for the vid - that was one that we watched also and was awesome.  Oddly I was like that with Santana.  We went to a concert to see Rusted Root who was opening for Santana and they were GREAT - then Santana came on the stage and while I had always appreciated Santana's music they were not really on my radar . . . . . UNTIL I saw them live.

WOW - for 2 hours we never sat down.  Any band with 4 percussionists has my attention.  DJ was like that with Pink Floyd.  I had seen them six times but when we met (21 years ago) she was really only familiar with their radio hits like "Money".  Then she saw them in concert and an entire new world opened up to her.

Live music ROCKS!!

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REAL heat is coming. Not this weekend but late next week with highs in the middle 90s and dew points near 70. Make plans. And if you are going north for camping make sure roads are . . . THERE.  a lot of wash outs and one guy has to take a 120 mile detour to get to work every day.  a LOT of roads are just gone.

Some reports from a few days ago from CoCoRahas

Ashland 5.01 inches of rain
Mellen 6.24 inches
Barnes 7.55 inches
Grantsburg 4.41inches

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We (meaning DJ) have started to condense all of moms writings into a digital format.  We have a good amount of stories that are type written but we need to get them into digital (somehow).  

Anyway a few of the handwritten things are coming into focus and since I really have nothing to say at the moment here is one things she wrote about Transportation in the 1930s.  it's not the most riveting but a Snapshot of what it was like so long ago.  She has a LOT of writings we are digging through . . A LOT  and the plan is to make another book in the "Snapshot series". Not sure this will make the cut but . . . .   

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Transportation

The first car I remember was old, square and dull black.  I don’t know if it was painted flat black or had become that way through neglect.  I’m said to have a good imagination but I can’t imagine Pa ever washing or polishing a car.  Appearance was of no importance to him.  Function was all he asked.

My eldest half-brother Don once told me that when the tires on that car became so thin that they punctured on every sharp pebble, Pa had covered them with even older tires to protect them, and kept on driving.  I don’t know how he managed that, but it sounds like something Pa would do.

I must have ridden in that car.  We must at least have gone to the school Christmas programs in it, but I have no available memories of it.

My Aunt Ruth once drove up from Palmyra to visit us.  I was flabbergasted.  It had never entered my mind that women could drive cars.  I wouldn’t have been more astounded if the neighbor’s collie dog had come driving up to the house.

Then for a while there was no car.  Don and Gilbert were gone by then.  My father walked or hitchhiked.  My mother stayed at home.  If we needed groceries, or something heavy or awkward from town, or if Pa was taking me to the dentist, we would catch a ride to Medford in the milk truck.  He’d take me to the dentist, and then deliver me to the public library to wallow in the wealth of books until he found us a ride home.

We had a car again to move to Holway.  I have no memory of that one at all.  I can’t even picture it parked in the clearing.  My brother Wayne tells me he was so ashamed of it if he absolutely had to ride in it he scrunched way down in the back seat so nobody would see him.  

On the other hand, I remember the Amish horses and buggies and sleds very well.  I never had a ride in a buggy, but they all looked spotlessly clean and brand new, even though most of them had been passed down through many generations.  Their wheels sang and the horses clip-clopped and the harnesses jingled, and all the Amish horses looked well groomed and well fed and self-satisfied.

I rode in the sleds often, to and from school in bad winter weather.  They were rectangular wooded boxes, probably about eight feet long, five feet wide, and five feet high.  There was a single step at the back and a door with a small glass window.  Inside, a straight kitchen chair held the driver.  He had a small glass window; below it were two round holes for the reins to pass through.  There were narrow benches on each long side, and another small window above each bench.  In the middle there was a merrily crackling little wood stove, not more than eight inches in diameter, and a three-inch wide stovepipe went straight up through the roof.  It was the neatest, coziest little room imaginable, and I always felt that if I could just have one of them to live in all by myself, I would be completely happy.

The Holway car took us to Iowa a year later, pulling a homemade trailer covered with a tarp to protect all of our worldly possessions.  It also covered Wayne who refused to be seen by anybody while he was associated with such a makeshift outfit.

I think the car just barely made it.  We seemed to stop at every service station on the way so Pa could raise the hood and tinker with the engine.  I don’t know what was wrong with it.  I had a more urgent problem of my own.  I had never heard of a “bashful bladder syndrome.”  I assumed that I was the only person on earth who absolutely could not “let loose” in a restroom when I could clearly hear every word, every sniff, every move, almost every breath of the men just inches away on the other side of the paper-thin walls.

If I had told my parents I know Pa would have stopped in some wooded area while I went off into the trees, but I was much to inhibited to say anything.  It was a might uncomfortable trip.

After we got to Iowa Pa bought a different car.  Of that one, I can tell you it was dark green with black trim, it was shiny, and had some gleaming chrome on it somewhere, and it wasn’t a Ford or Chevy.  It was by no means new, but I don’t remember Pa ever having to tinker with it.

Two years later that car took us, just three of us then, to Whitewater.  We were pulling the same homemade trailer.  Once, when we were going down a steep hill, entirely too fast, I suspect, we were startled to be passed on the right by a speeding wheel which whizzed along the gravel shoulder, bounced into the ditch and disappeared into the woods.  Pa took the name of the Lord in vain and yelled “Watch where it goes!”  I knew where it had gone in, but it traveled a long way after that and it took us a long time to find it.  It took longer still to get it back on the trailer.  And it took much longer to reach Whitewater because we didn’t dare go over about twenty miles per hour after that.

After Pa left us, taking the car, getting from anywhere to anywhere else was a matter of walking.  Motor vehicles just sort of disappeared from my personal life for the duration of the war.  It didn’t bother me much.  Cars had never been an important part of my life and I enjoyed walking.

My girlfriend and I used to dream and plan that someday we would walk across America.  Like most teenage dreams that came to nothing, but I still think it would have been a great adventure.

I’m afraid I’ve never had the really proper American attitude about cars.  

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I have an art fair this Saturday in Lake Mills - just sayin.  This photo is an Antillean Crested Hummingbird that I took on St. John USVI

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One last thing - Elwood and I will be at the water tower wall Sunday after noon so don't call the cops.  I swear every time we are there someone as called them about two ne'er do wells doing something sketchy on the wall.   YEA - like taking garbage out of the crevices - actually we have found very very little garbage and weeds are not a huge problem IN the wall - only on top and below.

The plan is to fill the wall with sedium and then once it's filled add veins of color in the next few years.  We're like doing the basement and then once it's filled add the nuances!

Humbled

We got back from another road trip last night.  This one was for the 71st USS Indianapolis Survivor reunion which had a decidedly different flavor this year.

Since last years reunion 8 of the 31 survivors have passed away with 10 being able to make it to Indianapolis.  It seemed to have put some weight on the preceding as meetings had a lot of "legacy" talk on what happens after the survivors are gone.  It has become a large family and we want to keep the memory alive.  

We saw the final cut of an award winning documentary which will be shown probably in Madison in a few months with special screenings.  It has won a couple awards at film fest's for Best Director (who we have gottin to know pretty well). 

Then there is the motion picture which had a weird vibe.  Seems the company asked for the Survivors blessing but the Survivor Origination said - let's see the script first but they said NOPE - so the Survivor Org said screw you, no blessing,  So the company went to the Navy and the Navy said the same thing.  Well, they got the script and said NOPE - here are 2 single spaced pages of changes and THEN we will give you are blessing.  

SO - an Admiral says, IF the changes are not in the movie they will give a very swift and loud media campaign to correct things.  Here is the thing.    

We are still learning facts on what happened in those 5 days at sea and there have always been some "secrets", some things that have made me perk up when someone mentioned something and then that avenue of thought is quickly squelched.  

For instance - every year someone brings up how there were instances of sailors going crazy and killing fellow sailors over water and other hallucinations.  It's like the survivors are asked about the horrors and sharks but there is always this "other horrible things" that are never talked about. 

Yet this year the "sailor killing sailor" thing was mentioned 3 times by various insiders and THEN the Navy said there are things in the movie the survivors will not like.  I think there is more to this then is being let on OR - the movie company went over the top on this.  We shall see.  There was even mention of finding out WHO took the Indianapolis off "the board" which led to the huge Navy cover-up. 

The Indy was on a schedule and suppose to come into port on a certain day.  Somebody took their name off the board like they had already arrived so everybody thought they were in port so nobody even considered looking for them.   

So the survivors were rescued but the Navy did not tell the family's for over a month that the ship was lost and there were only 317 survivors and then they waited until the very day the war ended to send death notices to teh families and to have the sinking on a back page of the papers.  THE DAY THE WAR ENDED and they got the death telegrams - SERIOUSLY? 

The the whole Capt McVay suicide in the early 60s is so sad.  Since they used him as a scapegoat and court-martialed for not zig zagging (even though he was told not too)  America thought he was inept (even with 10 battle stars) so for 24 years the Captains wife always got the mail and took out the really really REALLY cruel hate letters from families. She passed away and he started getting all the hate mail from families at Christmas. 

This got to him and one day with a toy sailor in one hand and his service revolver in the other took his own life a couple years after the 1st reunion in 1960. 

SO - it will be interesting.  It's a double edged sword. One one had it's a movie - not a historical documentary.  It's filmed on a battleship and not a heavy cruiser and I'm sure there are other liberties.
Sort of like Public Enemies.  Classic car people had all sorts of issues with the cars but the public didn't care.  Here on one hand you want the story to get out but on the other hand you want it accurate.

The search for the final resting place for the Indy continues - National Geographic along with Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute searched for the Indy last year and believe they are in a 30 square mile area but the problem is it sank in the Mariana Trench which is the deepest part of the ocean.  They plan to go out again next year.

There was a new documentary that starred Mel (SURPRISE!!!).  It was about the kapok life vests which were made of out of cottonwood seeds which were harvested by children during the war.  To our total surprise Mel was one of the two interviewers. He did this in secret.

I'm not sure who can see this "live" Facebook recording but it you can it's interesting.  The first 8 minutes are sideways but I correct it before the show started.

https://www.facebook.com/rod.melotte/videos/10208565047476754/

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Sunday after the memorial we drove to Springfield to get some things finished with moms estate.  I tell ya - GET THINGS IN ORDER for your loved ones.  My mom did a GREAT job but still so many unknown hoops to jump through.

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My brother is SO excited to move back to Wisconsin after 46 years in Springfield. The good thing is moving to Kewaunee WI will give me multiple years of Green Bay Packers presents.  He is not a football fan and literally just discovered TV which he never owned until a few years ago when mom moved in with him.    Netflix? What is Netflix?

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Prince - ever hear of him?  Well, I was never a Prince fan.  Heard his music and it was good but that was about it.  BUT - Stacey, my brothers wife was a BIG fan.  She said he was better in concert so she played some Youtube vids and HOLY CRAP - that dude was awesome.

If you have good base - this is AWESOME - I totally love Prince - LIVE

https://youtu.be/RC34ZcDiCag

   

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Nuff said - gotta mow the lawn before it rains! 

The wild parsnips are beautiful his time of year

The wild parsnips are beautiful his time of year.  I just want to strip down and run through them they are so pretty.   If you are looking for then check out the land around the truck driving school.  So so pretty.  But if you do run through them do it at night so you can stay away from Phytophotodermatitis which is ignited with long-wave ultraviolet light which will result in Postinflammatory hyperpigmentation and can last for MONTHS!! 

So if you see yourself among wild parsnips in daylight - you are SO SCREWED!!  

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Halloween.  Being a traditionalist I thought trick-or-treat should be on Halloween.  But those young whippersnappers on council came up with a MUCH better idea that when you think about it . . . is perfect.

It has not been voted on yet so nothing is written in stone but  . . . . . . How about Saturday nights 5-8.

Best of all worlds.   Since Columbus is a bedroom community (which, when I was a kid I thought that meant a town was like a huge red-light district) people get home later.  So - instead of on a weeknight, a weekend BUT at night.  The only problem will be 2018 and 2019 when Halloween falls on a Wednesday and Thursday.  The preceding weekend?  following weekend?

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I'm loving Waze but now my phone is getting repaired. Apple Store refused to do it until I backed up my phone.  I guess my storage was nearing 5gig so I had not backed up for a month.  They suggestion was BUY MORE STORAGE.  My suggestion was DELETE CRAP FROM STORAGE.

Seems I was backing up EVERYTHING.  No need for that so now I have 3 gig available and screw you Apple.  I'll have some dudes replace my screen for the same price and faster.

Waze??   Anyone know how long things stay up?  Like "car on side of road" or "police reports"? Just curious how it all works.  I can't find any place to ask stupid questions on the net.  

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Anyone know a good garage door replacer? I busted the window on our busted garage door so now it's REALLY busted.  Better fix it before winter.  I don't buy a lot of garage doors and the two places I emailed have not returned my mail. 

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OK - have to deal with issues at work.

I DID IT! she said

Welcome back ME!

So many things going on.   The biggest news was Sunday night. All day my granddaughter Sydney was SO PUMPED about going to the carnival.  After we took her on her first rides last year we learned she is an adrenaline junkie and every other sentence Sunday was "and then we are going to the carnival".

So we all went Sunday night . . . . . . . sadly Mr. Ed's had a generator blow out and the carnival was closed for the night.  WELL, that made one little girl very, very sad to say the least.

So Monday we went to Little Amerrika because it is FREAKISHLY less expensive and the rides are 3 times as long. The place is actually pretty nice and NOT like their horrible advertisements on TV.

You can tell by Sydney's look she is REALLY getting into the ride. 

 
But for as much hopping up and down Sydney had, Caydence was not as sure this was going to be a good thing.  The Merry Go Round looked pretty intimidating but after the first "go around" she was REALLY smiling.  When the ride was over she was saying "I DID IT, I DID IT!"  And then more and more rides were experimented with a huge huge smile.  And Sydney takes care of her big sister is such a big way.  Making sure she is OK and so forth.

Seeing her so relaxed was awesome.

Then came last night.  Caydence did not want to see the fireworks, way too loud.  But Sydney and Jenny came to the house and we watched them from a hill on the 17th fairway and we literally had fireworks 360 with huge ones going off all around us from houses.

When over Jenny and Syd left and it took Jenny 45 minutes to go the 1 mile home (Vista Circle to Sturges).  What a total mess traffic is in Columbus after the fireworks.  Reminds me of rhythm and booms in Madison.  Total mess.  NOT complaining as that is how it is with a zillion people watching one of the best fireworks in the area.
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Halloween - The Council will be voting on when Halloween is this year LIKE EVERY YEAR which to me is dumb.  Why vote EVERY YEAR.  Make a decision and go with it.  That is why people get so confused.  My vote will be for having trick or treat on the Holiday.  I asked kids last year when they came to the door if they liked the night Halloween and they said "scary, and AWESOME".

For me trick or treat was as good as Christmas and my memories in Fort Atkinson are more from Halloween.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!  He would have been 93 years old today.

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Elwood and I weeded the water tower and that place has the oddest weeds I have ever seen.  All of them are weird and both Elwood and I have never seen those strains of weird weeds ANYWHERE.

It's like a weed experiment gone bad and they are REALLY hardy.  We literally could not pull a few of them.

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The USS Indianapolis reunion is happening this coming weekend and I'll try to "live" Facebook  some of the events. Only 24ish survivors left and each one of them wants to be the last man standing (they kid about it). We will see the finished Documentary that is coming out and the major motion movie is slated to premier world wide on Veterans Day.

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Driving back the Andy Winn Memorial Golf Tournament: Back from the Dead where we play 18 holes and then a Brewer game, balderdash mentioned a app that looks for police speed traps.  I found it and it's WAY WAY more.

Called Waze I asked people on Facebook about it and it is a overwhelming THUMBS UP on everything GPS.

Basically you turn it on and the community updates it LIVE.  In our area right now there are 360 people using it.  So what happens is you turn it on and drive.  It tracks you and when you have a traffic slow down, or a speed trap or road construction or anything you "hands free" tell it and it updates all the maps.

Then, because everything is live it will show you different faster routes or where the trouble is so you are prepared. When I mentioned it on FB I had instant response's saying it was GREAT.  One friend said it saved him 5 hours on a trip to Florida. It also tells you all the gas prices (like GasBuddy which we used on the road trip out west - LOVE that app and it saved us a lot of money).

BTW - Google purchased Waze for $1.1 BILLION - I need to make an app.  I have a great idea if anyone wants to steal it.  Create an app that you put your yard configuration into it and it will figure out the BEST/fastest mowing patterns/  BOOM - billionaire!
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Oh - I sort of sucked in golf.  56 on the front easy nine (average 48) but a 50 (average 52) on the back.  It was probably the least tired I have ever been golfing that course. Working out for 1.5 years must be working.  The good thing is that every 9 holes I have at least one drive in the 230s that is somewhere near the fairway.  VICTORY!

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Gonna be a warm few days. Maybe some storms near daybreak tomorrow  and chances for thunderstorms all day Wednesday, Thursday and Thursday night. Some good rain coming.

And don't forget - Mullins has a special this week with 1/4 pound burgers (YEA!!!) fries and a small drink for $5.  DEAL ME IN!!!