Happy Sunday morning all:

”I come from a family where gravy was considered a beverage and the brown sugar sandwich was more than a staple.” ~ our north woods everyman Claire

Trying to keep a vegan family and a pair of Neanderthal grandparents fed for a week proved that Marcia can handle anything. Now she’s begun, in earnest, to teach me all her tricks since I’ll be doing the chefley duties for my brothers when they arrive next weekend. I’m already well versed since I mastered the fine art of making perfect morning coffee years ago.

The internet was down yesterday so, this week, it’s a Sunday post. Next week my brothers will be here and that too might make it problematic for a timely post. On the other hand, two of my three readers will actually be experiencing that which is normally part of these Ramblings. Even so, I’ll try to post.

Riding, climbing, fishing, swimming – and doing a thousand piece puzzle in our spare time made this past week. Noticed I said ‘doing’ which is not to be confused with the word: ‘completing’. The puzzle is the picture of a large dragon and the outline is that of the dragon – challenging to say the least.

The quads were placed into service as Dinah, at age six, experienced her first runs on barely visible trails, going through bogs and across creeks. She loved it all. Meanwhile, Marin was the old hand at doing this off-road stuff and showed it with ear-to-ear smiles.

As you can gather, we did all the stuff that makes a week at Northern Comfort so very special. However, for Marcia and I one of the most special bits was Marin’s starting of the evening campfire – without the use of a match.

Marin was working to achieve success for a contest Paul had proposed last December. At first he tried to use a “Flint and Steel” technique. He kept striking sparks, got some smoke, but could not get a flame. Next he used a magnifying glass on some wood shavings and plant fiber all cradled in a ‘nest’ of Birch bark. Within a minute or two he had a flame and carefully placed it all inside the tee-pee like arrangement of small sticks. Soon larger pieces were added which were quickly followed by full sized logs.

The newly started fire became the perfect vehicle for making “dough-boys”. In short order Marcia produced the necessary dowels, cans of biscuit dough, butter, and cinnamon sugar. Smacking lips over these baked delights completed Marin and Dinah’s first day in the north.

Buying and forgetting – ruled the day yesterday as four of us toodled off to town and the hockey/curling rink where a two- circle auction was taking place. Marcia rules! She snagged, for a mere $10.00, a Black and Decker folding work bench and a Craftsman router along with table. Don’t you just love it?

Well, that wasn’t all. She also won a sleek 16’ fiberglass and fibre kayak, single person, complete with a wooden paddle. The whole rig was a mere $55 and will serve well when we have guests.

Anyway, as you can imagine, we were all chatting happily as we headed north. Dropped Donn and Marlene off then paraded our new trophies in front of Paul and Dia, and finally drove home to Northern Comfort. Hours later we were chatting with neighbors who were boating by and stopped for a bit when Donn and Marlene’s boat came around the bend. Their query whether or not we were missing something was met with a blank stares.

Moments later it dawned on me. Our little 2CV, Our Duck, was still at the other end of the lake. I had completely forgotten our pride and joy. Out of sight, out of mind as the old saying goes is oh so true.

Mind you, it has nothing to do with my memory slipping. I don’t think that there is anything else Marcia wanted me to say on the matter. At least this is all I can remember.

Animal planet – The weather here at the north woods is bouncing all over the place. Earlier last week the heat kicked on. Yuck! Next was another round of rain. The following day I bailed approximately 40 gallons of water out of the Sea Nymph. Today the thermometer appears to be stuck at 60 degrees.

Even though it rained Jason, Marin and I climbed the backside of the cliff by hiking through the woods. The misty wet weather allowed Jason to create some wonderful photographs. Me? Well, I misstepped on a water-slicked root and promptly found myself parked solidly in the dirt. My greatest fear as I was falling? That I would land on the canister of Bear Spray I had hanging on my belt. I did not set the canister off and also did not land on the large pile of bear scat we found a little further on the trail.

Overhead we saw and heard a hawk. Between Jason and I we concluded that we were watching either a Cooper’s Hawk or a Northern Goshawk.

Fini – Make it a great week everyone.
Cheers.
Dirk

From the Archives
Saturday, July 29, 2006

Morning all:

I don’t expect any issues with this morning’s post, unlike last week’s update fiasco. That previous Thursday I received a note from my “hosting” service that “transparent-to-me” they had migrated my account to a new server—let it be known that a note of this kind is the kiss of death. Sure enough, no matter what I tried I could not FTP anything to the host. All weekend notes flew between the help desk and my laptop. Five settings were at issue and the combination made for me to try twenty some-odd variations before I gave up. Monday morning I explained the issue to one of the techs at work and showed him my list of attempts. He got it correct on the fifth try. My coffee tasted fairly bitter that morning.

Early in the week I grabbed lunch at a drive-through and received in change a washed out looking five dollar bill with something stamped on it in red ink—“where did you get this bill?” At the bottom was stamped “This bill is registered at www.wheresgeorge.com”. That evening I logged on to the site and entered the serial and series number and a 1-line description of the bill along with my zip code. It turns out that in almost three years I was the third person to register it. In early 2004 it was first logged in Baltimore, MD as a crisp new bill. Later it showed up in College Station, PA, and now again in Cincinnati. My bill had traveled 374 miles and had aged very gracefully with only a single small tear. Yes folks, yet another fun little diversion brought to you through the internet.

Our region, over the past several years, has not fared well in the news department. This week it gained a huge plus as being a first in the country. Cincinnati the city is interwoven with a series of small towns. Adjacent to where I live is the struggling little City of Norwood. This week this city lost out to Joe Average, the little guy, in Ohio’s Supreme Court. All the hub-bub was over Eminent Domain; the accelerating land grab free-for-all practiced by many municipalities all over the country came to a screeching halt right here in river city. Yea! No longer can a city just dump anyone out of their family home so that the property can be transferred to a private developer who promises visions of greater tax revenue. As I had always felt, this was not the philosophy America was built on, and Ohio’s Supremes agree.

Marcia thinks that I am paying absolutely no attention to any of the serious family events that loom. One of these is a scheduled Pig Roast in early autumn as part of the celebration for Adrianne and Tevita. I worked long and hard on a concept for the invitation cover. As I wrote to Kirstin, seeking her input for the (see attached) design artwork of the cover, I felt that it had a certain je-ne-sais-quoi; her candid response was not a glowing one. I guess its back to the drawing board.

Mentioning Kirstin, I am not certain that my post will be on Saturday morning next week. I am taking a couple of days off and be in Florida. I’ll have a short visit with brother George and Sandy then scoot on over to spend some time with Vince, Kirstin, Derek, and our new grandson Kellen. My plan is to spend a little time oohing and aahing over Kellen, but also to do some very special stuff with his big brother Derek. With all the attention a newborn gets I just want to make certain that Derek doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. I am really pumped about my visit and can’t wait.

Last night Jason and I walked the dogs in one of the nearby large parks and it was a bit of an adventure. Shang stuck his nose into a sweat-bee nest and within seconds all three dogs were rolling around on their backs covered by swarming bees. Next, Shang spotted a sewer rat next to the pond and gave chase. Rats are amazingly fast swimmers is what I learned from that lesson. I suspect that my morning walk will be somewhat more sedate. Ready Shang?

Make it a great week everyone; remember it takes 200,000 flowers for a bee to make 1 Kg of honey—respect the little buggers.

Cheers,
Dirk

7/29/2006 06:57:00 AM