Class Reunion and Fire Day Two

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My Dad and I went out to survey the fire damage the next morning. We had three fires on our land, destroying about 250-300 acres of rangeland. This is the first time since the family moved to the property (late 1930s? Very early 1940s?) that there has been a lightning-caused fire. There was a fire just a few years ago that did get pretty close to the houses, caused by a neighbor burning trash.

In the tradition of the Forest Service, I named the fires. So we have the Wade’s Dam Fire (located near Wade’s Dam, of course), the High Hill Fire (located on the highest hill on our place), and the Far North Fire (the one that was the furthest north, burning mostly our land but also crossing over into Forest Service land.) The High Hill fire also burned some Forest Service land.

I think this is a little better picture of the Wade’s Dam Fire. That windbreak in the foreground is built around the new spring tank my Dad and brother put in the week before, where the nieces were showing me how cold that water is.

This is the same fire from the north.

After the fire, then you have to fix fence. This was two weeks ago today, and my Dad is still working on fixing fence.

I helped! I did! I got things out of the pickup for him.

This is the Far North fire in the distance, the one where Dad was fixing fence posts. In the foreground is the High Hill fire.

We are on top of the High Hill on the ranch, looking down at the Far North fire. In the distance you can see the Wade’s Dam Fire.

We have a U.S.G.S. benchmark on the top of that hill. I don’t know if I knew that at one time, but I didn’t remember it.

This shows where the High Hill Fire jumped Farmingdale Road.

Another fire started on the School Section and surrounded the school and fire hall

And this is yet another fire near a neighbor’s. Bear in mind, all of these fires were burning at once. Fortunately the volunteer fire department is well-equipped.

After all this fire surveying, we were a little late getting into Rapid City for my class reunion picnic, but we finally made it, and saw yet another friend that I hadn’t seen for 25 years. We didn’t stay to go to the bar that evening, wanting to get home both because of the late night the day before and the possibility of more fires in the evening. Fortunately, the lightning didn’t cause any more fires, although I heard my Dad get up and go up on the driveway hill to look around every hour on the hour through midnight.

We got up and went to church the next morning. Mom and Dad treated us to lunch at Lintz Brothers’ Pizza, which was excellent. We got home, got packed, and got on the road. Not a long trip but it seemed long because of everything that happened, including us hearing the news about the theater shooting in Aurora.

More Class Reunion and Fire Report Day One

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Well, as you could tell from the guest-written entry, we made it safely to SD and spent one night at my parents’ house with my brother and his three kids there. It was fun and noisy to get to see them and I am looking forward to seeing them again when I go to Iowa for the State Fair in a week and a half. (Did I mention that yet? Probably not, since I haven’t been blogging much – I found a cheap plane ticket that only required me to miss one day of work and I am FINALLY going to go to the Iowa State Fair, home to much food on a stick? More on THOSE plans later.)

We saw them off the next morning and then went into Rapid City to meet Ken’s sister and her husband and their two kids for lunch and then go to Storybook Island. The kids had never been to Storybook Island so they thought that was pretty fun. Unfortunately it was unbelieveably hot (well, typical for this summer), and so most of the slides were too hot for them to go down, but they enjoyed everything else. Then we met my high school friend, B. for dinner, it was really great to see him after 25 years! We had found each other through email and Facebook but it isn’t the same. The first get-together for my class was at Murphy’s bar downtown – it was great to see a few more people from the class, many of whom I did not know because we did have 367 people in my class. We always complained about cliques back then but I guess with that many people it is a structure that naturally forms.

We could see some storms rolling through town, there was a little rain (not enough to drive us in from the patio of the bar) and we could see lightning out east, so I hoped my parents were getting rain, not lightning, because it has been so dry this summer.

We didn’t stay too late at the bar, knowing that we had an hour drive home. We went home using the “Farmingdale” route (there are basically two ways home to the ranch from Rapid City, and they are pretty much the same mileage.) Once we got to the spot where our land meets the road on the Farmingdale gravel, (and Ken is trained to recognize this spot, because I quiz him about it every time), we saw fire trucks. We passed one truck which was extinguishing fence posts. Ken said, “Isn’t this your place?” but I didn’t think so, because we had come a little way south. Turns out, it was our place.

Further south, we came across another fire crew, and I could see these were people I knew from the community, so we got out and talked (and I checked to see if my Dad was among them). They said there were probably a dozen fires in the neighborhood that night, and that it was very fortunate it rained about .06 of an inch just as the fires were really getting going, since it was so hot, dry and windy. The rain really helped put things out, and probably prevented thousands of acres from burning. They thought my Dad was probably still out north on our land, checking burning fence posts.

So we continued on our way home, but then we stopped at the fire hall, because it appeared that the whole community was there. Dad was not back yet, but as we stood and visited with people and heard fire stories, he did eventually arrive. We headed on home to see how Mom was doing and then waited up until Dad got home to hear more fire stories, so it was a late night. Mom told us about how she had been on the phone with a neighbor who was reporting a fire at his place, and she was looking out our north window and could see a fire starting from a lightning strike. My Dad said he originally thought he could go out there and put that one out with the water sprayer on the ATV, but then he decided he would have had to have been right on the spot when the lightning struck, because the fire took off so fast.

Here is a picture of that one, more stories of Dad and I going out and surveying the fire tomorrow and many more pictures.

This is about ½ to ¾ of a mile from our house, fortunately the wind was blowing it AWAY from the house and ranch buildings.

Post With Niece Sydney’s Help

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This was written by my niece Sydney because she is tired of waiting for a blog entry.  (She is even more annoyed now that I have had this for more than a week and haven’t posted it yet!) (Notes in ital. are by Glenderella)

The Drive and Evening of South Dakota

We started off the day by waking up and finishing packing because I had to stay up last night making a tie for Ken for a commercial. I had to make it because another person is going to slash it off with a sword. Which my niece, Sydney thought was extremely cool and entertaining.

(This is Ken doing the equivalent of saying he needs a turkey costume for school tomorrow. He needs a tie for a commercial he is making that will look as if someone has cut it in half with a sword. He, of course, assumes this will be a piece of cake and “won’t take long…” Uh huh. So wrapped up the day doing that. I ended up using double stick tape, because the tie trick isn’t going to have to be done over and over for many nights, just a couple of times for the commercial shoot. I did have to reinforce the tie and make sure the inner lining didn’t show where it had been cut.)

When we finished packing and I called my Mom to ask her if there was anything I needed to bring, as I am very forgetful. She just said the socks I knitted for her and cross-stitching stuff for my niece, Sydney. Then we got on the road, as myself and Ken took turns driving. We stopped for lunch at the truck stop in Lusk. I had a hot beef sandwich. Ken had a bacon cheeseburger. We liked it, very good. (Ken liked his, mine was not very good. There was no taste to the gravy, it was just brown. It tasted like brown. That is all. Next time I will remember to have the soup and a piece of pie.)
Pictures of food:

We got back on the road and kept driving on the way we listened to the iPod and the person in the passenger seat was entertained by the flower that dances by solar power. (I have a solar powered flower on my dashboard that bobs. What of it?) (When Ken was driving, I was crocheting on my #2 Camp Loopy project.)
We were driving for a while and then we stop at a truck stop to get out of the car. Ken found some jackalope nuts that we have to get on the way home for his co-workers that asked him to bring home an interesting food from South Dakota.

(We actually saw the jackalope nuts at the truck stop where we ate lunch. I didn’t get a look at them but it sounds like they might be chocolate covered corn nuts. We were going to stop and buy some on the way home for Ken’s co-workers but we forgot.)

Once we got back on the road and driving we were almost to Hot Springs I guess we drove through a fire that is quickly spreading and is still not contained. (We didn’t drive THROUGH the fire, we could see it as we were driving, it must have been pretty early in the fire activity because the guy at the gas station didn’t even know there was a fire. This fire is called the Myrtle fire and is still burning.)

Once we got on the gravel road which means we are almost to my parents’ house well then we got stuck behind a cattle truck going maximum 25 mph. (Only for a couple of miles, though.)

When we got to my parents house the first thing I heard when I walked in the door was my niece, Sydney yelling “hooray!!! Glenda’s here!!!”. Then my mom saying ” Sydney not in my ear” as I walked through the door seeing her ironing, which she says wrong, in the 102 degree weather.(Sydney pronounces iron as eye-ron, apparently there was not enough ironing going on at her house at a formative age.)

Then Ken and I got hugs by all of them. Then we sat down and were talking as my two nieces Sydney and Taylor and my nephew Dawson were bringing in kittens showing us. Ken and I didn’t think the kittens enjoyed being SCOOPED up and tossed over there back to be carried in and out of the house. We had lots more fun and talking when we watched the news, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.

Then we had the kids look up words in the encyclopedia and they struggled with that because usually they just use there phones.(I don’t remember what set us off to look up something in the encyclopedia but the kids were kind of entertained by how “vintage” they were

We had dinner which was leftovers and talked about Ken’s movie he is filming about deaf kids learning to play basketball and at that point my niece, Taylor said they should include a cracken( check my spelling) (kraken) (kraken was ONE of the things we looked up in the encyclopedia, this particular encyclopedia did not include kraken as an entry.) and Ken said he would try to work it in.

The kids said they were going fishing with Grandpa so we stayed at the house and watched golf when they weren’t around because the kids think its boring. Sydney came in to get herself an ice pack and said its because she tried lifting the 80 pound bags of cement for the tank they built.  I heard they got around 13 fish and 3 made it back for the kitties.

We went out and looked at the tank also. Then the kids showed us how they stick there heads in the natural spring which they said Glenda! You try it too! And I said no it’s enough for me to feel with my hand. (My Dad and brother had torn out an old rusty metal stock tank. It is a spring-fed tank and had water all through the last drought. They replaced it with a tank made from an old, huge scraper tire. This tank is in the Buck pasture, for those of you who know where THAT is.)

My brother said to the kids they needed to go to bed if they wanted to show us the zip line in the morning so they went off to brush their teeth. Then Ken asked my brother how do they stop on the zip line? He responded they hit a tree. That was enough for one night.

Right as everyone was going to bed, Sydney came out and said my contact cleaned amuses and entertains her because the bubbles float up from the bottom then lights went out and we crashed.

-Sydney!!! 🙂

They showed us how they use the zip line in the morning. Their dad mostly stopped them before they hit the tree. It was much quieter after they left but far less entertaining.

Spokane Day 3 and 4 – Saturday and Sunday

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I am back! Sorry, that is how summer is – busy! And when I am not busy, I am tired! But here is the last installation about my Spokane trip.

Now that we were busier with meetings, we had less free time for cavorting around Spokane.

It has been nice at this meeting that we are staying at the hotel where the meeting is held, and we haven’t had any terribly late nights. I guess there is probably some socializing going on in the lounges that we could join in, but it is also nice to get some rest and come home from one of this trips somewhat rested and not exhausted, and hopefully not get extremely sick. Although I still manage to get plenty tired.

Discovered Saturday that crocheting when tired is almost as dangerous as crocheting when drinking. I did several rows on the baby blanket Friday night and then had to rip one and a half out because of mistakes.

After we checked out the “light breakfast buffet” Friday (after eating at our hotel) and discovered it included an omelet station, S. and I ate there this morning. They had a selection of breakfast breads, juices and coffee, and the omelet station where they would make omelets with ham, cheese, onion, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, peppers, etc. They also had salsa and sour cream you could add to your omelet. It was a pretty tasty omelet, made a nice breakfast.

Almost everyone in the meeting headed for the Safari Room at the Tower for lunch because of their advertised $5 lunch, so we stayed at the other hotel. I wanted to try the Davenport Signature Salad that S. had the other night, and they also had French Onion soup, and I will ALWAYS eat that if given the option.

S. and my boss both had the tomato bisque and grilled cheese. This was a pretty fancy cheese sandwich – it looked like it wouldn’t be easy to eat.

I liked the salad but not as much as my caprese the other night. It had beets but they didn’t seem very beet-y to me, but I was glad I tried it.

The description of the soup says that the onions are carmelized (not very much) and that they are in a beef broth (hmmm, awfully pale for beef broth, I was assuming it was chicken) – so it was kind of different but it was good and the green onions on top were a nice touch.

More meetings in the afternoon, I did manage to fit in a nap at one point (back at my room, not IN the meeting). We haven’t been staying out at night or anything but travel is still tiring. I was trying to stay in touch with Ken at home to see if it was going to rain and how much. Kind of sad to be away from home and miss the rain and cool weather.

We had a group banquet for dinner Saturday – so no pictures. Really nice meal – salad, with their delicious house poppyseed dressing, and a baked potato with all of the toppings available on the table, a slice of salmon, asparagus, and a beef filet. This was one of the best filets I have ever had, let alone at a mass meal. Usually beef at a group meal is overdone, this was on the rare side of medium rare, so I felt bad for the people who only like their beef more well done, but I sure enjoyed mine. Dessert was a chocolate sponge cake, two small circles with a chocolate mousse with raspberries in between them, topped by a chocolate ganache, and a raspberry on top.

Breakfast again Sunday at the meeting, and lunch at the Safari Room at the Tower, because I wanted to try the Hot Brown sandwich, which was pretty good but quite rich. The soup of the day was beef teriyaki soup, which sounded so weird that I had to try it. The waitress said it was a little salty and she was correct.

S. had the Thai Chicken flatbread and a house salad – she expected the flatbread to be spicier than it was, but still thought it was fine.

The rest of the day: more meetings, eat at the airport, fly home….can you tell I have run out of steam on this trip? Well, the most exciting parts happened toward the beginning anyway.

Spokane Day Two

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S. and I decided we needed protein for breakfast, and we weren’t sure what we would get at the “light breakfast buffet” that was part of the meeting, so we ate breakfast at the Safari Room in the Tower of the Davenport Hotel. I wanted to try corned beef hash. I believe this was a mistake. I think you are probably meant to eat corned beef hash at a Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives kind of place. It was fine, but it wasn’t very crispy, which is what I was hoping for. S. had the crab omelet, and she said the crab was excellent.

The hash also had a horseradish cream sauce – maybe a little heavy on the sauce.

This hotel apparently doesn’t believe in coffee makers in the rooms – which did not make S. very happy. She is an early-morning coffee person. Apparently they want to drum up business for the Starbucks in the lobby. I am a Diet Coke in the morning person myself, and I was able to obtain some at breakfast.

We stopped in at a few of the meetings in the a.m, but we were not assigned to sit on any of those committees, so we decided to head down to the park again and look around. The original flour mill   that was located on the river is still there and has been turned into shops and offices. There weren’t a great many shops there, but we had fun in the Chocolate Apothecary, where I enjoyed an ice tea and a sea salt caramel. S. bought a box of Lemon Breeze by Jo’s Candies, a huckleberry truffle (again with the huckleberries) and another lemon treat that I can’t remember. She is into lemon and chocolate. I scarfed down my caramel before I got a picture.

We spent the most time in “Kitchen Engine” http://www.thekitchenengine.com/joom/ which was quite a nice kitchen store – we enjoyed looking at the gadgets, La Crueset cookware, fancy coffee machines, and tea selection. They had some hard red winter wheat in bags for sale that you could grind yourself. They also had dough conditioner, which you can add to your doughs, etc., to make them softer, and I have never seen that in a store, just online, so I bought it, I have enough room in my suitcase to take it home. S. bought a drink muddler, which she said she is not putting in her carry-on in case they think it is a weapon.

The muddler and its instructions caused some inappropriate giggling.

We walked back over the river on a different bridge. There are several different bridges, I think we have hit them all except one, so far.

By this time it was about time to eat, and Travis from Paradise Fibers had recommended Sushi Maru as a good place to eat. It is a conveyer-belt sushi place, so various rolls and pieces of sushi come by on a conveyer belt and you pick off plates you would like. The bill is based on the number of plates and the color of the plate rims, as some items are higher in cost and some are lower. You can also order some items from the kitchen if you don’t see them on the conveyer belt. We had several different kinds of rolls, they come 4 pieces to a plate, so if you are sharing, that way you get a taste of everything but don’t get tired of it. I also had a bowl of miso soup to wash it all down. The waitstaff are very helpful and knowledgeable about the ingredients (S. is allergic to tree nuts and sesame seeds, which can be challenging at Asian restaurants.)

We headed back to the hotel for meetings, and had good, productive committee meetings.

C. arrived from Colorado for the meetings and we toured him down to the park as we had some spare time. Well, first we went across the street to a Bruttles candy store, because this candy store was claiming to be the “original” soft peanut brittle (the hotel provides soft peanut brittle in the rooms and it is available for sale in their shop.) So we wanted to know what the story was on the peanut brittle.Apparently they were the originators of the soft peanut brittle, and provided it for the hotel, but then the hotel decided to start making their own recipe of soft peanut brittle for themselves. I gave a slight advantage to the taste of the Bruttles. C. went back later and bought 3 pounds, which he could easily eat before he gets home, he has a bit of a sweet tooth.

Then we walked down to the park, this time we did partake of the mini-donuts, sorry, no picture, as my phone was deceased. We walked down a kind of scary gravel trail (scary because it was steep) to the walkways/stairs along the lower falls, near the original power plant.

Again, my phone was dead, so these are some pics from C’s and S’s phones.

The organization held a reception that night with heavy hors d’eovres, so we debated whether we needed dinner or not. The reception theme was Hawaiian, and we had really good fruit, veggies with dip, Asian-style pork with hot mustard, large cold prawns with cocktail sauce, cheese tray, veggie egg rolls, sliders, chicken on skewers, beef on skewers, coconut shrimp and truffles and chocolate dipped strawberries. The best things were the pork, the fruit, the cheese, and the egg rolls, I thought.

C., who had flown in from Colorado that afternoon on a delayed flight and hadn’t had lunch, wanted to eat dinner so we did go to the Safari Room at the Tower again and had a light dinner – that is, S. and I had soup and C. had the three course for $15 special. I had the curried lentil stew, S. had the clam chowder, and C. had the Cesar salad, short ribs, and peanut butter pie dessert. And I forgot to take pictures!

We were all tired again, and headed for our rooms. I took a shower and spent some time crocheting, since I made such a big stink about getting a crochet hook, and got a few rows done. Usually my business travel treat is watching TV in bed, but for the last few nights, the selection has been remarkably bad.

Spokane Day 1 – Continued – Shaved Ice and the Riverfront Skyway

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After the great yarn adventure, Travis from Paradise Fibers dropped us off at the Riverfront Park and we went immediately to the shaved ice booth and had shaved ice. I had half strawberry and half huckleberry and it was excellent. Next time I will have all huckleberry.  Huckleberries are a big thing in Washington and Montana, there are many huckleberry products available. The shave ice came in a large plastic flower-shaped protector, so you wouldn’t get it all over yourself, of course I saved both of ours to put in the “Costume Trunk.” Someone will think of some way to make them into a hat or something.

There was also a mini-donut booth in the park but it was closed at that time.

They have a Skyride gondola that takes you out over the Spokane River Falls, and we decided to enjoy that attraction. Fun to travel with a board member who wants to go out and visit the local sights. And is willing to walk miles to a yarn store. There is also a train ride around the park where there is narration about the area’s history. The World Fair was held here in 1974. It is a beautiful park in the midst of the city, lots of trees, very cool. AND mini-donuts and shave ice. They also have an antique carousel and an open fountain where kids (and adults) can get wetter than a trout (or a salmon, more correct for the area) but we did not partake of those attractions. Also: a giant red wagon with a slide for kids, and a garbage eating-goat sculpture (must find that sculpture in the next few days, as my friend Cathy mentioned it in here Spokane memories.)

One view of the lower falls from the Tram ride. It was late in the afternoon so we had some shade from the art deco Monroe Street bridge. This is a very cool bridge, which includes cow skulls (or buffalo?) as part of the decoration. Not real ones. Cement ones.

This is that bridge, you can kind of see the cow skull at the top of the tallest part.

This was the location of the original power plant that provided electricity for the street cars in the early 1900s, and there is a modern hydro power plant there today.

After the tram ride, we walked back to the hotel to meet up with my boss for dinner. We are staying in the Davenport hotel, which has two buildings – an historic building, and a more modern “Tower” across the street. We are staying in the Tower. Beautiful, large rooms.  It has kind of a jungle theme, hence the leopard-skin chaise lounge. The historic building has been restored extensively and maintains all of its beautiful frescoes and interior details. The rooms are large and comfortable and very nice.

Rather than a bathtub, there is a large walk-in shower.

They also give you a small sample of two kinds of “Soft Peanut Brittle” which is apparently a Spokane thing – one with chocolate and one without. And they give you fresh ones each morning. Mmmmmmmmm.

The bed has a mirror on the wall behind it, which does make the room look larger and is pretty but can be startling when you sleep on your stomach, and wake up in the morning and wonder who is looking back at you.

We decided to eat at the Palm Court in the main building of the Davenport. We got to sit at one of the tables in the sky-lighted lobby and admire the surroundings.

I had perhaps the best caprese salad I have ever had, local heirloom red and yellow tomatoes, mmmmmm.

S. had the Davenport salad, crisp romaine topped with hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, bacon bits, fresh roasted beets and Parmesan cheese dressed with creamy garlic vinaigrette.

I had the coconut prawns as my entrée and she had the salmon.

(My boss had the house salad and the prime rib, but I didn’t take pictures of his.) I think both S. and I thought our entrees were Ok but the salads were the best part of the meal. I had the Huckleberry Riesling, by Latah Creek, which was lovely.

By the time we finished dinner, it was after eight, which was after nine Colorado time, and we were tired out for the day, so headed back to the rooms to sleep.

Spokane Day 1 – A Crochet Emergency

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As I  started writing this, I was flying along merrily in the airplane, with no crocheting to do. Hoping against hope there would be a knitting store near the hotel where I could obtain a size H crochet hook. Apparently I was not meant to get anything done on this trip after all. Except write up some advance blog entries, so I guess that is OK.

I left the house in plenty of time to go to one of my favorite greasy spoons and have breakfast. At breakfast I realized I didn’t pack any knitting or crocheting for the plane, and I really needed to work on my Camp Loopy crochet baby blanket, so I went home and got it. And I am sure I got the hook, but somewhere along the line, it slipped out one of the holes at the top of the bag. I was sure there was still a possibility it was in my carry-on somewhere, I tore it apart to the best of my ability but a thorough search is not as possible in an airplane seat. So I was writing instead. If I just read my books, I would be done with both of them before we landed in Spokane and then I would have to buy a new one for the trip home.

I arrived at the hotel, tore my carry-on apart, and no crochet hook. So I got on Google and found a really nice yarn store not too far away (1.6 miles according to mapquest) and asked my friend and board member S. if she wanted to take a walk. I did warn her how far it was. It was relatively cool here in Spokane compared to how hot it has been in Colorado, so off we went. Well, we had to divert a little because one of the bridges Mapquest had us crossing was cars only, but it wasn’t too bad. It seemed a lot longer than 1.6 miles however. Eventually, though, we arrived at Paradise Fibers. I had called them to make sure they were open. They had apparently had a run on size H crochet hooks, however, and we kind of had to scour the store – all of the typical ones were depleted. They were very helpful in the search. Finally, we found one that was usually used for Tunisian crochet, but I thought it looked a little big, so I also picked up a size G. Right before I was ready to check out, though, S. found a “Reflections Crochet Gift Set” which contained a H hook, so I decided to get that. As well as a lovely lavender Lantern Moon project bag, and a nice skein of red violet and green Frolicking Feet by Done Roving Yarns “Berry Bush” which I will use to make the Wingspan Shawl as soon as I have a few other projects done. So I guess I have my Spokane souvenirs.

This store is staffed almost entirely by young, good-looking men. Kind of encourages you to come in and visit rather than shop on the internet.

So this is where it gets really crazy. We asked one of the guys how we should get back to the falls on the river – he said he would get us a map, and then he came back and said, “You know what, it is a long way, why don’t I just give you a ride?” First he took us upstairs to the break room and let us have a glass of water, which was welcomed, and then he drove us to the riverside park. What kind of amazing customer service is that? His name was Travis and he is one of the owners of the store. I will be a loyal customer from now on, I can tell you that.

Now if my nieces are reading this: NEVER ACCEPT RIDES FROM STRANGERS. But if you are my age, accepting a ride from a yarn store owner is probably pretty safe.

More next time about our adventures at the park (shaved ice! Tram!) and our dinner that night.

New Life for an Old Prom Dress

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More randomness and catching up:

We had our 18th wedding anniversary on the 24th of June, and we were in Hot Springs, we visited the Arts in the Park Festival, and while we did not purchase any art, we had corn dogs and I had a Sno Cone, which made my day. Quote from that day: “I bet I could eat five corn dogs if I tried.” Ken: “Let’s not.”

As we were getting ready for the trip – Ken, in a voice of disbelief “All these bags have to go?”

Of course, these pictures are at the end of the week, when I had acquired EVEN MORE stuff, because the pageant producer was going to toss all these bridal veils (just simple homemade ones, for a Lady Gaga production number) and I said – I have 6 nieces, please let me have those. Ken just rolled his eyes when he saw me marching out of the dressing room with THOSE. So those are ready to be sent off to enhance the dress-up trunks of the nieces someday.

My brother had my two oldest nieces and nephew up at Mom and Dad’s ranch, so they came down to Hot Springs to see the Miss South Dakota’s Outstanding Teen Pageant on Friday night, and we had dinner with them before the show. It was the typical dinner with three kids, kind of loud, eldest niece S. showed me a picture of her infected toe during the meal (I guess at least she didn’t show me the toe, I should be grateful….). I think they had a good time at the pageant, they were lucky, the a/c was working that night. I think my niece T. might be interested in competing at some time. S. and T. both are pretty and talented enough to do it, but it is not something everyone is interested in. Plus, I don’t know if my sister in law L. could take it if they were both competing in pageants. She gets migraines as it is.

I had the chance to run up to the ranch and see them again on the Saturday of the pageant. I dug into my closet and got out my Scarlett O’Hara prom gown from 1986 and gave it to the girls for their theatrical performances. (They know “Wicked” by heart and like to act it out.) I think my mom was kind of dismayed, but I was pretty sure I was never going to wear it again, and it wasn’t doing anyone any good hanging in the back of the closet. I did have to replace the elastic in the lace around the shoulders, but I made quick work of that.

S. in the dress.

Me helping T. with the dress. It has several pieces. We didn’t have the hoop skirt to go under it, but we had a small crinoline.

T. in the dress, S. in a vintage western shirt. She thought it needed fancying up, with some Sharpies and some color, I said, “No way!”

Here I am in the dress, ahem, SEVERAL years ago.

Note how I am posed with the deer horns coming out of my head, oh so lovely.

Happy 4th of July

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My office took Monday the 2nd off so we would have a long weekend, so we are actually working today. I expect it to be a very quiet day with minimal phone calls and emails, so perhaps I can get MUCH done!

More catching up?

Oh, what did I do with the rest of my life in June?

I forgot a few little incident/anecdotes from early in the month. I went back and checked through my Facebook page, that helps.

From early in the month: Ken said, “By the way, nice drawing this morning.” I had drawn him an arrow on a paper towel to point out the cat barf on the kitchen rug. The barf kind of matched the rug so I barely saw it in time and didn’t want him to step in it. It is not every morning that I am coherent enough to draw an arrow. I wasn’t going to clean up the cat barf, but I didn’t want him to step in it.

Also:

The TSA lady at the Bozeman airport needed to pat down my collarbone area because of sequins on my shirt the security scan found alarming. She asked me if I had any bruises around my neck (presumably so she wouldn’t hurt me.) I said, “Nope, no recent vampire bites either.” Someday I am going to get into big trouble at an airport, I just know it.

And, I am glad to report that we only had BBQ beef on a bun ONCE during all of the meetings out in the fields. That was partially due to some planning on my part, but part luck. We did have various other kinds of barbecue, such as brisket, and pulled pork sandwiches (but sliced, not sauced) but those were an excellent and a welcome variation. The last meal of the trip was a Mexican buffet which was quite good, excellent green chile. And I thought it was hot while we were out there (these meetings were all outside) but it got much hotter after that week – so I am grateful it was only in the 80s and 90s that week, not the 100s like the following week.  It was, however, very windy, and each night I left a significant of Colorado dust in the bathtub, especially since I was rigorous about re-coating myself with sunscreen, so the dust had something to stick to.

I went out shopping yesterday for setting fabric for the bunny rabbit embroidered quilt. Was all set to get purple and pink, because I know pink is one of the niece’s favorite colors. Then I happened upon some carrot fabric – how perfect is that for a bunny quilt? So I hope she likes it. This quilt was meant to be done when she was a baby, and she is going to get it when she turns 5 in October, so I am making it into more of a twin size quilt. That is what I get for picking a quilt with 12 blocks, the next one will have six blocks, which is what I typically do. The Sewing Circle, a quilting store in Fort Collins, was having a Buy 2 Get 1 Free special, so by buying two yards of each of the bunny fabrics, then I got 2 yards of strawberry fabric for free. Not sure what I am going to do with it yet, but I am building quite a collection of strawberry fabric.

My poor garden is about fried. It did not need record setting heat in June. My little pumpkin plants have flowers on them, but the plants are so tiny, I doubt they are going to do anything. Only about 3 little lettuce plants came up. I am tempted to turn the top part of the garden into just peonies, bleeding hearts, and herbs. Trying to get more herbs that will re-seed themselves or just come back from the roots. Thyme and mint doing pretty well at it. Cilantro re-seeds itself and then bolts almost immediately. Haven’t been able to get dill started. Tried to move the horseradish and chives, and they just died instead.

Leo Gets His Summer Haircut

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Last summer we got Leo a summer haircut, partially to be cool and partially because he had some mats in his fur we couldn’t brush out. So we did it again this summer. He seems moderately less humiliated. His sister is still hissing and growling at him, however.

Before:

After:

Please note his sister sniffing his tail. She hissed at him right after that. The groomer said “My, he is a big boy, isn’t he.”

After the cat grooming van, then the piano tuner came. (It was a REALLY bad day for cats.) Apparently I should get the piano tuned more often than every 7 years. He had to do a “double tune,” running through all the keys twice. Now I just need to be organized and remember to have it tuned every six months, so it doesn’t get so bad. I have been in the mood to play lately and it is depressing to play when it is out of tune.

I did some shopping in preparation for pageant (WAAAAY back in June) so here are some pictures.

Accessories at Charming Charlie. I didn’t get the chance to wear/use all of these yet. The turquoise coral-looking bracelet broke the first time I tried to wear it, oh well. I am saving the pieces for some future craft project.

I think I only wore one of those flowers in my hair during the week, and I didn’t get anything put in the purse yet, too busy. But they sure are cute.

Summer shoe shopping:

These are Merrills, I thought they were the answer to my lack of sandals, but they rubbed my high arches funny and they went back to the store.

These Skechers are actually really comfortable, but I think I forgot to even take them to Hot Springs, hmmm, perhaps I have too many shoes?

I thought these were the answer to my desire for lower-heel, patent leather, pointy toed pumps, but nooooooo, these made so much noise when I walked they also went back to the store. It sounded like I was walking on the sticky side of Contact paper, for all the plastic-y noise they made. I eventually found a pair of sling-backs that worked, apparently point-toed pumps are out now, so sad. Pictures of the second round of shoe-shopping sometime this week.

Other than dealing with the cat groomer and the piano tuner, I worked on a pieced quilt, started the crochet baby afghan, went to the pharmacy and bank, went to JoAnn fabric to get setting fabric for the bunny quilt and left when it was obvious it was going to require waiting in line a half hour to get my fabric cut, and took a nap, which was awesome. I will probably regret it tonight when I am trying to go to sleep. And now, Monday night, I am working on cleaning out my closet, because I have a good friend who is losing weight and she gave me a bunch of her clothes that are too big for her now. Wheeee! Hand-me-downs! It was like having a personal shopper, everything fit! So I need to get rid of some of my old stuff that I don’t wear any more, and make room for the new!