2knitwits

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Snow 2010-2011, a comparison.

Thanks to Jon I have some pictures of 4425 comparing spring or summer and this winter.

And just so you know, it has started melting fairly seriously today.

The driveway this winter

The driveway in Spring

The Spirea in June

The Spirea this winter. Jon had to hack off the side because
it was scratching the cars.

Front view of the house in the summer

Front view from the street this winter.
The pile of snow comes into the street at least 5 feet on each side.
It is one parking lane and one driving lane only.

Love,

Nancy

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Old pictures, inspired by Dave Elliot

Hello again, Sisters.

Cousin Dave posted pictures of Grandpa Moses on Facebook, and I thought I'd share the picture I have. It hung on the wall in the Minneapolis house until I asked Mom if I could have it.


Grandpa in dugout

It is rather dark. I'm thinking of getting it cleaned - maybe that would help. I wonder if it was taken when he lived on the Menominee Indian Reservation? That would make it around 1910 when he was 22.

The other picture of Grandpa I have is one that I think everyone has seen, but maybe not:

Was this taken for the 50th wedding anniversary? I remember that, in the family room at Aunt Jo's. Grandma wore that silk dress, creamy and purple and blue with pleats.

Here are the pictures that Dave posted (I hope you don't mind that I lifted them, Dave - you are welcome to grab the ones I have here):

Dave says Grandpa would be 14 here.


And this one is 10 years later.

Let's end with pictures that came in a set - Mom says these are by a photographer that lived in the hotel in Alma with the family. He took the photographs in lieu of rent. Mom has a long frame with all four pictures in it. I scanned them back in 2006, I think, when I scanned every old picture in the house that I could find.

Gert


Mug AKA Mom

Bud

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The Ruby Stretch.

Hi Jeni and Nancy,

I'm now able to tell you about the latest thing in baby care, and that is swaddling. Wait. Maybe it is really a retro thing, because wasn't Moses swaddled? Which might be why Ben is so good at it (that's an "in" joke, the rest of you will just have to ignore it.)

Swaddling isn't something I did with my baby, but after seeing it done I wish I had known about it. Basically, it's wrapping your baby up tight like a burrito during the early weeks of life, simulating the womb and keeping your baby feeling safe and warm. You can read about the benefits here.

Ruby is a swaddled baby. She is very happy to be swaddled, and when she gets unswaddled (that is a funny word), she does something Ben and Amanda are calling the "Ruby Stretch." And now, for the very first time in your very own home, here is Ruby doing the "Ruby Stretch" with commentary by Amanda and Brian.

After this visit, I am done driving for the winter. I've driven to Missoula twice, and to Minneapolis in November, and I think my Winter Driving Luck is probably used up. So, no more visits from me unless you want to Skype or Google Video Chat. Come summer, I'll start traveling again. Of course, y'all are welcome to visit Billings!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

The Big Scarf Photo shoot

Once upon a time, I went hiking with three friends. We decided to take pictures of ourselves using our cameras' time elapse photo option. What happened was this: I got everyone set up, hit the button and ran to get into the picture. Nothing happened. Then Kim wanted to try. We both got set up, hit our buttons and ran to get into the picture. Nothing again. We finally realized DUH, we were hitting the POWER button each time instead of the shutter. Nancy said she'd help. What happened? We hit the buttons, ran into the picture and nothing again. We couldn't stop doing it!

Eventually we all pushed the right button at the right time.

Iceberg Lake, Glacier National Park, 2006

We were laughing because we couldn't believe how hard it was for us to take a simple picture.

Well I guess nothing has changed in my brain. On Christmas, I had a similar problem. It wasn't so much that I turned the camera off (although I did do that once - gosh I can't believe it!) It was that I had the camera on record instead of photograph. So this is what a family looks like while they're waiting for a picture to be taken:

Friday, December 17, 2010

The day after the blizzard

Hi there Jeni and Mary, These pictures have been ready to post for about a week. I guess I have been lazy.

Jeni on the front steps. Note how high the snow drifted on the porch roof.

This is what the window looks like from the inside.

Alice prefers a room with a view

A view of the driveway from the street

The first cut through the driveway. That snow is high on the side of the neighbors house.

Jon starts to clear the center of the driveway. E and Jeni helped.

A view of Jon through the frosted screen of the porch window.

Neighbor kids having a great time in the snow. The one with the Santa hat has a
black scarf around his face. You can't even see his eyes.

Love,

Nancy

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.

Howdy -

I'll leave it to you to read the rest of Robert Frost's poem. I'd like to talk some more about ice - in fact, water in all its forms. For instance, nice blizzard you're having in Minnesota. I just saw on the news that the Metrodome has been flattened.

And then there's the little dusting of snow Billings got this morning, just enough to hide where the really slick ice is. Here's an example of a Billings side street:

26th Street N.

Underneath the dusting is a crusty, slippery obstacle course. We've had some warmer weather, but it will take one massive chinook to take care of what we've pressed into ice by driving on it.

And then there's the ice that formed in a basement pipe in Whitefish, and thawing, floated up under our kitchen sink and got stuck in the water filter, bursting it.

Of course, we knew nothing of this. After being gone for two weeks, Brian arrived in Whitefish around 9 pm. He was tired from an 8-hour drive extended to 11 hours by bad weather, running out of gas, and a nasty case of the stomach flu. He was ready to just empty the car and fall into bed. Instead he was greeted at the back door by two inches of water in the kitchen, and it was still running out of the burst filter:

It looked like the water had been running for some time. Here's what our 80-yr.-old oak floor looks like now:

This is the dining room.

Detail of floor between office and dining room.

Brian says the linoleum in the kitchen is toast too. When he went down to the basement to turn off the water (because there was no shutoff under the kitchen sink), he said it was "raining" down there. Of course, that's where all his tools are.

"Luckily" the water did not get too high upstairs because it was running into this furnace intake vent and thus down into the basement:

The furnace is still working though we'll have to get it checked on. To top it off, the weather has been bad enough to keep the insurance adjuster from making his visit. He lives in Great Falls and that's about 3 hours away over Marias Pass. So we'll have to wait a few days more to see what he says.

Regarding Frost's poem about which would be worse, I definitely prefer this to a fire.