Mutant fish...and they fwam and they fwam...

Howdy Nancy,
I think in a few weeks, you'll be convinced that it's the mosquitos who will take over. I've been to your place, and I know whereof I speak.

Hey, on May 7, I'm going to pick up the Canadian from Fernie, BC
and bring her back down here for the graduation and the wedding that we'll be celebrating for the next two weekends. I'm looking forward to having at least two of the sisters together for awhile.

I do not suck my thumb, it's my finger!!! I am not a shrimp! I can talk! Mo-oo-ommm!
Love ya, Mary

Home Again

Yup we made it. I packed for two days and we drove home on Saturday the 21st. We got in about 4:30 and I vacuumed up bugs while Jim unpacked. The cats wanted out on the porch immediately so I let them be out there and went out to mourn over the dead fish pond.
I was standing sadly staring down at it and saying "goodbye fish" when I saw a flash of orange. Hmmmmm.
FISH!!!!!
I made Jim find a hose and started a water exchange because the pump was no longer working. I have 13 fish still alive in the pond. Four of the white ones are gone. I wonder now if any died from the power loss. I think it might be racoons fishing instead.
I got a new pump yesterday and started it up so they would have some areation. Totally amazing. I think the water must not have frozen completely for very long. (Although it was 30 below zero.) I think that the power got turned back on in time for the fish to freeze and thaw slowly. The pond heater was still in the pond and probably started up again in time to slowly warm up the water. Who knows? Maybe they are just mutant unkillable goldfish. Probably from another planet sent here to take over.

PS...I am totally jealous of your knitting classes!
PPS.. Alice was out for about 45 minutes today and I have already taken 4 tiny ticks off her fur. None have managed to reach skin yet. It helps to have long fur.
Have a great time.
Love,
N.

Mug to Maggie - no, not that kind of mug

Hi Nancy. I have been having a *%&#& difficult time blogging lately. I've spent hours meticulously adding pictures, etc, only to have something go haywire and mess up the whole thing. Suffice it to say that I'm an amateur, and I can't create what I can visualize - yet! At any rate, I"ve decided to go minimalist, and just put in pictures with text below, as the damn things won't allow I'm unable to put text alongside. Obviously, I do not get it. Woe is me.

Anyway, what I've been trying to post is pictures of Mom in her three nickname stages, namely (and I'm not trying to make a pun, ol' bear, sometimes it just works out that way) "Mug," "Red," and "Maggie."


Mom as "Mug"

Mom was telling me, when I was there over Thanksgiving, that
Maggie wasn't her nickname until Dad started calling her that. I hadn't known that. Of course, she was Mug as a child, 'cos Uncle Bud couldn't say Margaret.


Mom as "Red"

When she went into the WACS in WWII, she was known as "Red"
due, of course, to her red hair. Nice do, Mom. I've got a picture of myself in the '80s that kinda reminds me of this. This picture is annotated at the top that she is getting ready to "ship out." I assume from India to home.

Mom as "Maggie"

Then there's Mom as Maggie, and this is what I didn't know. She had an Aunt Maggie, a spinster aunt that used to show up and stay with the family for a few months before moving on to another relative. I really don't know where this aunt is on the family tree. At any rate, Mom and her siblings didn't like it when this aunt came to stay because she was fussy and they probably had to be on their best (or better) behavior when she was visiting. The name Maggie became negatively associated with this aunt.
Of course, after Mom told Dad this story, he used it to tease her and call her "Maggie" as if she were a crabby old aunt and somehow the name stuck.

Well, that's a long story with not much to it, but it was interesting to hear something new. I hope to get back there soon and find out some more stuff about Mom and Dad, although they seem to be a lot funnier in telling the stories when they know nothing is recording it. Ah well. Maybe I'll take some pictures of knitting pretty soon. I'm just glad to be getting back into the swing of blogging. How is packing going? When will you be back at the farm? love, md

Two Reasons to Celebrate April 17th

Howdy Nancy,

Congratulations! By the time you read this, you will have lived through another tax season (mostly - there's no doubt lots of loose ends to tie up). Time for a deep breath, and maybe one more, before you begin packing up for the trek back to the farm. Birds, garden, quilting friends, carp back in the pond, etc, etc. Aren't you excited? I can't wait to see pictures from the farm!

Another reason to celebrate: our No. 1 nephew is now THIRTY-FIVE! Incredible. Who'd a thunk it? I saw him this weekend - he came up to Whitefish with his girlfriend and she made him go horseback riding. She's a native Montanan who had her own horse growing up, so she exposed him to something new. He called later that night and complained that his thighs were killing him, but that he liked it and might do it again. Har! I told him I'd buy him a 10-gallon hat. No. 1 Nephew is not very tall, and his girlfriend is less tall than he. So a 10-gallon hat ought to cover it. In fact, when they visited last summer, they came up in a VW bug. They had their luggage, camping gear, and two bicycles in the car, and there was still room for both of them.

I'm sorry I don't have a horseback picture, so this will have to do:

This is Ezra, a local kitty, who is eating by using her paw as a spoon. Ezra lives with Katie. A loveable kitty, eh? More knitting later, but must to work now. Love, md

I finally finished a project

Hi again,

Well I finally finished my scarf for Jim. I think my favorite part about it is the fringe which is really single crochet 13 times and attach to each bound off stitch and do it again. It is loopy. I thought I was going to have little curly worms at the end but that would take longer to do and it was 10 at night so I went with fast and love it.

Jim says that most blogs last 3 months. He read it somewhere and told me this. I would love to prove him wrong but we seem to be slowing down. Of course you have a graduation to plan. And a wedding to go to. And a husband in Seattle to visit. I have two more days of tax season and then back to the farm next Saturday.

I got you some pictures of Mom and Alice. Mostly them 'going for a walk'.

Mom says Alice gets on the walker and then 'looks at me'.

She has also taken Abby on two walks this week. Abby is more work though. She is afraid of the sound the walker makes when Mom releases the brakes and almost always jumps off. Mom has to push her on the walker and hold her down, um, I mean pet her until she relaxes and then she goes for a walk. Once the walker is going Abby is OK.

No pictures of them yet as Abby is shy and only does this when I am at work.

My wrist is almost completely healed from my sprain. I have lost a little movement but not enough to make any difference. The only thing that bothers me now is my right thumb. I might have hit it also in the fall because the joint where it joins the hand is swollen and a little sore and in the morning the thumb doesn't want to bend. I have to wiggle it all around. It doesn't affect my knitting though so things are OK.

Love,

Nancy

About time...

Hey, Nancy!
Yes, I have a lot of excuses for not blogging lately, but none of them are good enough to quit! I want to keep it up; hope you do, too.
Last time I wrote, I promised a Seattle Travelogue:
I'll just give the short version; you can see pics on my Webshots site.

I did go to two yarn shops: the Seattle Yarn Gallery, which would be the lys for Brian's neighborhood of West Seattle. It was fine; I bought some of my favorite short dpns for socks there: Brittany Birch.

And later on, we went to Bainbridge Island to Churchmouse Yarns and Teas, and I bought a shop pattern (a Koigu ruffle scarf) and a book of patterns with a vest I really want to make, and best of all found out that Sally Melville is going to be there! And she's going to be there right around the time I'm in Seattle area for Paul's wedding and I'm going to two classes! I am not too thrilled, no, not a bit! I asked the ol' bear to sign me up for one, because of the $$ (he had to do it because it was a first-come, first-serve starting at noon and I would be working at the Buff.) But he signed me up for two anyway! No wonder I love him. So anyway, I am looking forward to that in the middle of May.

All the graduate/scholarship stuff is done; now it's up to the universe! Yee haaaa! I've been knitting on a baby jacket for Christy's stepsister, Sarah (who does not read this blog) and a shawl, that, if I'm lucky, will be ready to wear to Paul's wedding. Yeh, right. I'd better think of a plan B. I'll post some more pictures later, but right now, I've got to go shower all the Buffalo butter off of me! For now - this is where and with whom I spend my Sundays: Mandy, Jack, and Charlie at the Buff.