After The Storm Wednesday Medley

The game of pick up sticks.
More like pick up branches.
There are currently 50 crews out working to restore power after our big storm last Friday evening that affected a huge area of NW Wisconsin. They say there were a few tornadoes and 80-90 mph straight-line winds. As of Tuesday afternoon, they're predicting another 2-3 days without power for us. Some places north of us they're expecting it will be another 3 weeks!

***This post was written yesterday on my phone. After supper last night, power was restored. Yea!! But anyway, now we have glorious running water again, for which I am so grateful!***


Please join Terri and the gang
For

Wednesday Medley.
She writes the questions; we write the answers.
Plug them into your own blog post and link up at Terri's blog,
Your Friend From Florida.

In spite of 80-90 mph winds, and losing our 90' eagle spruce as well as many trees and branches, nothing fell on our buildings. And of all the branches that fell in our front yard, not one punctured the screen of our porch or did any damage. Thank you Lord. What a miracle!

TODAY IS NATIONAL COUSINS DAY

1.  What can you tell us about your cousins, please, or someone who is close like a cousin?

When I was a kid, many of my cousins lived in the area. We got to see them and play with them regularly. We told ghost stories, played starlight moonlight, and had lots of fun together. It was a fun childhood. David and Bobby were my favorites.

2.  Do you still see your cousins and will you contact them on National Cousins Day?

I see my cousins only at funerals. That older generation that kept up the reunions is no longer here. And my generation is busy just trying to get our own families together. But I do have a special favorite cousin who moved to Montana some years back. I need to phone her. We always have great visits!

Update: I phoned my cousin at your prompting and we had a great two-hour visit of serious stuff and total nonsense. We have so much shared history. I told her it was like spending a day back in country school. It was a real treat!

The bonfire for our August family reunion here is growing, thanks to last week's storm. Mr. C and I are cleaning up the back and front yards, but I let the family know they should come prepared to help with cleanup (the giant spruce.) 

The huge spruce missed our house too. So thankful. I will miss the eagles who used to visit there. ☹️

JULY 26 IS NATIONAL AUNTS AND UNCLES DAY

3.  Terri had a favorite aunt and uncle she will tell us about.  How about you?

I had lots of favorites, and usually it was because of their sense of humor. Aunt Ruth, Aunt Elaine, Aunt Ruby, Uncle Merlin, Aunt Lois - especially those.

4.  Did/does your family have reunions and can you tell us about them?

We did have occasional reunions with the Canada relatives. We would meet in Solon Springs, Wisconsin and all the adults would tell us my how we've grown. It was very boring. I just remember the men being tall and gray and old. The women were shorter. The best reunions were the Sunday afternoons when we'd go to visit one of my dad's siblings and their family or my mom's sister and her family. Mini reunions. Very often. Cake and ice cream. Those were the days when the ice cream man had a rural route and people kept like 5 gallon ice cream cylinders in their freezers! Really, I'm not kidding. One neighbor could be counted on to have BOTH vanilla and chocolate in those huge containers. It was wonderful. And no wonder I was a chubby kid.

5.  If you have children, are they enjoying relationships with their cousins, aunts, uncles?

To the best of my ability they are. That's why I try to host the August reunion and an early Thanksgiving. Just so these cousins can get to know one another and play together and make fun memories. I'm hoping this baton can be passed to the next generation pretty soon.

6.  Tell us something random about your week so far.

Eating on the screen porch

Heating up chili I had in the freezer
I am sorry, Pam. I see that Mr. C. grabbed one of your beautiful coasters to use as a shim to level the legs on that LP burner! Please see Pam's Coaster Doodles shop on Etsy. The coasters are SO CUTE (and not to be treated as common shims).

Enjoying an evening during
The Great Power Outage of 2019

We are so truly grateful to God for keeping us safe through the storm, for preserving my screen porch 😊💗🙏✝️ and for giving us strength for this cleanup operation.

BTW,
Always be prepared for something like this. Things I'm so glad we had on hand include:

Bottled water, several cases
Generator (about $300)
Mr. C brings home 5 gallon buckets of water after work each day to keep on hand for bathing and flushing (not at the same time). 😊
(We run the generator during the day only, hooked up to the refrigerator and freezer and a power strip for charging our phones)
A can of gasoline on hand, and we get more as needed.
A few meals in the freezer
An LP burner
Paper plates and bowls
Flashlights
Antiseptic wipes
9V itty bitty flashlights for nightlight
(I still hate the pitch dark, but then my deeds are not evil. 😊)
And of course we always have canned and dry food on hand.
And T.P.

And most important of all on my survival list:
Coffee!!

***

UPDATE!!!
Power restored at 6:55 PM Tuesday.
Yea!
Our little pioneer adventure is over.

What a luxury electric power is!

******

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They will hopefully be re-opened in the fall.
 
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I wrote this post on my phone and what a pain that is!

THANK YOU TERRI!!

Although I wanted to join in with other Meddlers, I have a few projects to do today: Laundry, dishes, branch pickup.
I can't promise when I'll be getting back to the computer.
Have a wonderful Wednesday, everyone.

Yellow Pig!! Medley

Photo from Monday, taken on the way home from Chetek. 
New Scandinavia Lutheran Church, just up the road from our home.

"Everyone worships something. It's 'worth-ship' - 

what's of highest worth to you? 

The biblical idea is if it's other than God, 

you will disintegrate on the inside 

and society will disintegrate around you."

- Bishop Robert Barron 

Join Terri and the Gang
for

She writes the questions;

we write the answers.

Plug them into your own blog post

and join in at Terri's Blog,

Your Friend From Florida

Thanks for the Medley, Terri!  Terri's questions are in black; my responses are in blue.

NATIONAL PEACH ICE CREAM DAY – July 17

HOW TO OBSERVE NATIONAL PEACH ICE CREAM DAY

Grab your ice cream maker and invite your friends and neighbors over for an old-fashioned ice cream social! Give this homemade peach ice cream recipe a try. If you need tips for picking fresh peaches visit Frog Hollow for an easy guide to the best peaches. 

First of all, I can't tell you how good that fresh peach ice cream looks to me. Peach is my absolute favorite!!! But it can't be vanilla ice cream with hunks of peaches. It must be peaches blended thoroughly throughout and then maybe extra hunks of peaches besides. It's just amazing.

We actually did make old-fashioned peach ice cream for friends, and after the woman ate her ice cream, her tongue and throat started to swell up and they had to rush to the hospital. She had no idea we were using fresh peaches and we had no idea that she had an allergy to them. It was very scary, so it kinda wrecked a fun time, needless to say.  Anyway, fortunately she survived the homemade peach ice cream incident. And this subject makes me wonder if I could dig out my old ice cream maker...

1.  Do you enjoy fresh peaches?  What is your favorite way to use them in a recipe?

Yes, I do love fresh peaches, especially the freestone type, so you're not fighting with that pit. My favorite recipe would be peach pie.

An Amish farm in our neighborhood on a warm and muggy day

NATIONAL WRONG WAY CORRIGAN DAY – July 17

NATIONAL WRONG WAY CORRIGAN DAY

National Wrong Way Corrigan Day on July 17th commemorates the transatlantic flight of an Irish-American stunt pilot from Galveston, Texas. Douglas Corrigan gained notoriety for an unplanned transatlantic flight to Ireland on July 17, 1938. 

Growing up as a boy, Douglas Corrigan’s (January 22, 1907- December 9, 1995) fascination with flight was not uncommon. Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight may have been the most impressionable moment in his young life. In 1938, the young stunt pilot flew from his home in California to New York. Upon arrival, he requested permission to duplicate his hero’s historic flight. They quickly denied his request due to the age of Corrigan’s 1929 Curtiss Robin.  

With only a magnetic compass, Corrigan advised officials he was returning to California.  According to the story, after takeoff, cloud cover prevented Corrigan from accurate navigation. When Corrigan dropped below the clouds hours later, he saw he was surrounded by water. It was then that Corrigan realized his navigation was off. He continued, and 28 hours later, he landed in Ireland. 

That was the story as Corrigan told it. Reporters suggested Corrigan made secret plans to repeat his hero’s flight anyway. However, years later, Corrigan held fast to his original explanation.

HISTORY OF NATIONAL WRONG WAY CORRIGAN DAY

National Wrong Way Corrigan Day originates with the date Corrigan left New York in 1938.  In 1987, Long Island commemorated the 49th anniversary of the 80-year-old Corrigan’s flight with a parade and called the day “Wrong Way Corrigan Day.”  The city of Galveston, Texas proclaimed Wrong Way Corrigan Day in 1992 to be celebrated on January 22nd, the date of their hometown hero’s birth. 

2.  Have you ever gone the wrong way on a one-way street?  What do you think about Mr. Corrigan's story?   True or False?

No, never ever. And I sure hope I never do. I think Corrigan got his wish, tried out the cloud cover story, and it's one of those 'That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!' things.

NATIONAL YELLOW PIG DAY – July 17

NATIONAL YELLOW PIG DAY

National Yellow Pig Day on July 17 honors the unique attributes of the number 17 and its significance to mathematics. 

If you don’t think the number 17 plays any role in our lives, consider these facts:

• The number 17 is a premium number in the arena of prime numbers. Add the first four prime numbers together, and 17 is their sum.
• The average loaded school bus weighs 17 tons
• Each of the following words has 17 letters:
  • interdisciplinary
  • telecommunication
  • misinterpretation
  • commercialization
  • electrophotometer
• The atomic number of chlorine is 17.
• Pebble Beach named a road 17 Mile Drive along the Monterey Peninsula in California. However, the exact length of the road is 16.78 miles.
• The 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gave the citizens of the United States the right to elect their senators by popular vote. Before the states ratified the amendment on April 8, 1913, each states’ legislatures elected the senators to Congress.

Look for the not so random occurrence of the number 17.  Look!  Yellow pig!

HOW TO OBSERVE

Brush up on your calculus and round up your yellow pigs. Look for the number 17. It’s everywhere! Post on social media using #NationalYellowPigDay.

Don't bother to count them. :-)

HISTORY

Our research found that National Pig Day originated sometime during the early 1960s. Two mathematicians named Michael Spivak and David Kelly analyzed the random properties of the number 17 and a mysterious yellow pig. It seems the process became excessive and professional. Kelly lectured and developed classes around it. Spivak published several mathematics texts, while not based upon it, he does subtly reference the number 17 and Yellow Pig.

I think the Prime Number thing about 17 is about the only unique thing listed. I could say, I saw a cluster of 17 daisies in the ditch or I found 17 wood ticks on me or there were 17 pieces of Swedish fish in the box (before I found it). I mean really. Then again, I'm going to turn 71 in a couple weeks and if you reverse those digits, Voila! (or Bob's your uncle!) YELLOW PIG!! (I might not have used 'Bob's your uncle' correctly. It's one of those mysterious British idioms.)

 Homemade Pizza last Friday night.

I seem to only make it on Friday nights. Friday night pizza and an old movie are a good combination. We re-watched 'The Jury' with Derek Jacobi, Antony Sher, Gerard Butler, etc. etc. 

3.  Tell us about your life when you were 17.

Tending the dinosaurs 24/7.

 

Breakfast in the screen porch

WORLD EMOJI DAY – July 17

HISTORY OF WORLD EMOJI DAY

In 2014, Emojipedia founder Jeremy Burge created World Emoji Day.  The date of July 17 has been intrinsic to the iconic red and black Apple calendar emoji since its launch in 2002.

4.  Do you use emojis when you text, email, or FB message? Do you have a favorite?

I do use emojis when I text or Instagram. Hearts, smiley face, grins, laughter, kitties (although they are desperately short of cute kitty emojis these days and there's not even one German Shepherd emoji out there). I also use praying hands and the Cross. Not all at once, mind you.

NATIONAL TATTOO DAY – July 17

HISTORY OF NATIONAL TATTOO DAY

National Tattoo Day has been observed since 2016. The founder or source of the day has not been identified.

 news.com.au

5.  It has been asked many times, but do you have a tattoo?  Do you want to get a tattoo? 

No tatttoo. Doesn't appeal to me.

 Across the road

6.  Last, but not least, please tell us something about your week!

 After a torrential downpour last evening

From the porch

The two exciting things about the week thus far are:

I was bitten by a deer tick (they're about the size of a poppy seed) who managed to keep his teeny weeny head under my skin for a few days even after the rest of him had been dislodged - which meant a trip to the doctor and 21 days of Doxycyclene and avoiding the sun. The medication is phototoxic and can cause severe skin burns if you're out in the sunshine. SO, we wait for summer all miserable long and cold winter and now when it's gorgeous and 85 degrees and sunny, well. But actually, I'm not truly complaining. There are far worse things than having to avoid the sun. One would be getting Lyme disease. It is a horrible and difficult disease, so many different manifestations, and debilitating in many cases. I thank God that the tick was where I even noticed him, on the inside of my elbow. But if you're outdoors in the North, check for those little rascals. They're so much smaller than a normal wood tick and easy to overlook.

The fun thing about this week is looking forward to an Instagrammer friend and his wife who will be joining us for lunch in the screen porch on Thursday. He's seen my photos from the porch and is merely asking for lemonade on the porch and a rainbow. The lemonade I can do. The rainbow? Hmmm. LOL 

P.S. Bob is not my uncle.

 My HomemadeSoapnSuch shops are

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Hopefully will be re-opening in the fall.

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Have a great Wednesday, everyone.

Thanks again, Terri!

Judy

 One of my neighbor girls

 

Fourth of July Wednesday Medley

 

 From Westby, Wisconsin

Delicious cherry jam from Door County
I wish I still had some of that.




Join Terri and the Gang
for

She writes the questions;

we write the answers.

Plug them into your own blog

and join in at Terri's blog,

Your Friend From Florida.

Of course, we will be honoring the USA's Independence Day

for the Wednesday Medley!!

Thank you for the Medley, Terri!

Everything below this line is from the line is from the National Calendar website.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INDEPENDENCE DAY – July 4

INDEPENDENCE DAY

Each year on July 4th, the United States celebrates Independence Day. This federal holiday commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. 

Did we really think that was a good idea???

For nearly 250 years, the country has been celebrating a day in history that inspires us still today. On July 4th, speeches and ceremonies are held across the nation. Across the country, people crowd cities for parades and festivals. Streets are decked out in red, white and blue bunting and flags.

While families and friends gather for some of the most mouthwatering food – large picnics and barbecues, local fairs provide a taste of culture and mom’s home cooking, too. With so many converging on their hometowns, family and school reunions take place.

Fire Works

Before the day is over, many communities hold spectacular fireworks displays re-enact moments of victory. Patriotic music accompanies the performance while spectators view the show from blankets strewn along capital lawns or from boats floating in bays. Whether out National Anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner” or “God Bless America,” many will sing along.  In some locations, music will be played by a live orchestra or band, while in other areas it’s pre-recorded. Some of the most popular on the playlist are “America the Beautiful,” “My Country, Tis of Thee,” “This Land Is Your Land,”  “Stars and Stripes Forever,”  “God Bless the U.S.A.,” “Yankee Doodle” and “Dixie.”

In some parts of the country, people will shoot their own fireworks. Children delight in the bright colors and sparklers. They roast marshmallows and make s’mores.

 ***

Questions are from Terri. My responses are in blue.

1.  Please share a favorite July 4th memory with us.

Nothing especially stands out, but thinking of childhood, sometimes we were at Silver Lake or Shell Lake here in Wisconsin, a couple of Wisconsin's 15,000 lakes! And as I was trying to dredge up some memory of a big Fourth of July celebration, it occurred to me that the reason I couldn't remember anything too specific was that we were farmers. It was haying season, and I'm sure that my dad and brothers were in the field baling hay and putting it up for the winter. It would have been after that, late evening, that we would head to the lake. And I remember my brothers shooting off firecrackers now and then.

When our kids were young, we would go to the fireworks display at Barron next to the high school, or to Rice Lake. We would put chairs in the back of the pickup and meet friends up there for a fun time of fireworks, Twizzlers, and popcorn.

 Grandkids playing in the pond garden stream

 This was July 7th, the closest I could find. The kids are pulling algae out of the stream. They know that to move the rocks would be to cause the water to overflow at places and then the pond level would lower. And they know that it would not make Grandma happy to have all the water gone from the pond.

2.  How do you plan to spend tomorrow?  If you are working, will you celebrate later?

We'll be in Wausau visiting our daughter and grandkids. Our other daughter is going to drive up from Madison to join us!  and later we'll be watching fireworks along the Wisconsin River. 

3.  Is there a favorite food always reserved for your 4th of July celebration?

 Strawberry shortcake, if made with GF flour, sounds good to me. My problem with anything like this is that nowadays (Is that a word?) I will end up eating it alone. Mr. C. will have a tiny piece and then go for the chips or popcorn. So if anything, I would make a tiny one-or-two serving shortcake. Most likely, this year it will be Air Head Bites for a treat.

Monday evening, 8:30 PM, from the porch

4.  In Florida, you can buy all kinds of fireworks, including some that fly high and burst into pretty cascades.  Are fireworks legal in your state/community and does anyone you know put on a display for your neighborhood?

In Wisconsin, every Walmart parking lot and other fireworks sales tents go up the end of June, so there are always fireworks being shot off in the neighborhood, usually starting July 3 or even earlier. The photos below are from 2015. The 'boys' would often shoot fireworks from the top of our hill. They have to stop by 10 PM, but that's because their mother makes them stop because it seems rude to the neighbors to be shooting off fireworks after that. The neighbors, on the other hand, seem to go on for all hours. That's because their mother isn't a killjoy. LOL

Doesn't this look like it's from a TV show?

the kind I don't watch? LOL

 From a few years ago. Evidently something more exciting than fireworks caught Lucy's eye.

5.  Do you have a favorite movie that you always watch sometime during the 4th of July?

No, but one of my favorites of all time is Enemy of the State with Gene Hackman and Will Smith, so if I were to watch any movie on the Fourth, that might be it. Again. It's just a great movie!

And when Mr. C. puts on his readers, he looks just like Gene Hackman. I tease him about it. LOL

6.  Share something from your week, please.

I shared this photo, taken Tuesday, on Instagram. It was a beautiful July day, typically warm and muggy, but bright blue skies (after the rain that seemed to go on forever). I hung the polyester double knit quilt my mom made from scraps leftover from outfits she made for me and for herself when I was in Junior High. That stuff was beastly hot, didn't breathe, but it also didn't have to be ironed, so Mom used it a lot in her sewing projects. It's nearly indestructible, so it makes a great picnic blanket (or blanket from which to watch the fireworks). I hated that quilt when Mom made it and pretty much right up until the time she died. After that, it kinda worked its way into my tiny heart of appreciation. And now, I love that I have that quilt that she made. It will live forever - and not just in my heart. I mean, that stuff lives FOREVER.

 ***

After 40 years in the contracting business, Mr. C. is actually going to officially retire the end of this month.  It's been coming slowly. It was going to be January, then it was going to be April, then it was going to be June.....

But retirement does not mean mornings at the coffee shop for this man. It means the start of work on the Wausau house and after that, work on the farmhouse to get it ready to sell. So he doesn't dare hang up his work clothes just yet.

 More of this kind of thing

with one of our sons

Maybe I'll let him have coffee and a donut now and then. ;-)

Have a wonderful Fourth, everyone!

Join me on Instagram @cranberrymorning

Judy

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