Buffalo Gal

It sneaked up on me;  I have been waiting to reach my 1000 th entry on my blog begun about 4 years ago and today I noticed that I have 1001 entries to date.

I also checked my first blog date:   May 11, 2006.     I have been an Areavoice blogger for 1361 days.

Statistics.   They sneak up on you sometimes like they have done to me.

I have enjoyed my time blogging for nearly 4 years and will keep it up for awhile longer as long as I enjoy it.   Still have not finished that blasted book for my grandkids though.

That is not a real news site, trust me!    I made it up sitting here at the computer table witha very Needy Dachsund at my feet.  I stayed home this morning to take care of the two needy pets in this house right now—-the dog we are baby sitting while one of our sons and his family takes a winter vacation and the Princess Kitty who is miffed beyond description that we have let a dog invade her house.  Without going into detail, it is a difficult and dicey situation keeping these two from seeing each other and I feel like I have two infants again.

But I can watch News to my heart’s content during the confinement which will last all this week.  (I can do this I tell myself).

While watching some Sunday morning news I paid particular attention to two items that caught my attention.  The first one involves the wearing of pajamas to shopping venues.  One city (I cannot remember where but it is in the US) has passed a law that says shoppers cannot wear pajama bottoms to grocery stores.  This tweaked my interest since on my last foray to a super market,  I did a double- take when I saw a woman (she was NOT a skinny woman, either) wearing pale pink checkered, well - worn (they had a lot of nubbies on them) pajama bottoms.   I have observed this phenomenon of people in public places wearing a lot of kinds of pajama bottoms during the past year.   I agree with those who passed the ban on wearing pajamas while shopping.  I wish there was a ban on people in motels or hotels appearing at the buffet breakfasts in their nightwear also.  Informality can only be taken so far, in my opinion, but then I was born before WW 2 started, so that says a lot.  If people show up at grocery stores with their hair uncombed, in their pajamas, looking like they have not washed their face and have just gotten out of bed (at two in the afternoon) something is definitely wrong.  I say Ban Pajama Bottoms Everywhere Except In The Privacy Of Your Home!

The second news item that REALLY caught my eye was the coverage of President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden attending a pro basketball game in Washington DC between the DC team (name of team I cannot recall….the Capitols???)  and another well known pro BB team.. Obama was even invited to sit at the broadcasting table with earphones on while they let him "call" the game for a short time.   The reason this grabbed me is because I just read a news item yesterday telling about the Obamas only having attended church in  Washington about 2-3 times since he took office.  The article then detailed the complications involved in having proper security for a church and its members if a President attends there.   I could understand that.  The article also said that Obama likes to attend chapel services at Camp David, the presidential retreat in nearby Maryland.  Wonderful!

But then I asked my self:   isn’t the security at a basketball arena a lot more complicated than at a church in Washington DC.? Surely the Pres and the Veep cannot just walk in and buy tickets and sit down to watch the game, can they?    Security must be just as complicated, if not more complicated,at a huge public sports arena with all sorts of people a in attendance—thousands of them at many Pro basketball games— and these are probably not docile church goers like you might find at the First Methodist or Second Baptist church in DC??   (oh yes, I do know about the Dr Tiller shooting at  a church–but you have to agree that it is an extreme rarity)   I would think a lot of people at a Pro basket ball game would present more security nightmares than church goers.

It is surely a "Puzzlement" to quote the King of Siam from "Anna and the King of Siam".  I do not get it at all.   But it does reflect the mass values of we Americans at this time in our history when worship of sports teams seems much more important than worshipping the King of Kings.

Now that I have told the true tales about the Junk Drawers and the Fibber Closets…..I might as well go the whole way and discuss   …….tah-dah!……….THE HILTON.     It is long gone now but it served us well for many years at both places we have lived since 1969.

"The Hilton" was our name for a building that we bought shortly after we bought our farm in 1968.  The farmsite was beautiful—-the house was set on a small rise—the highest part of the property, and though it was very old and very small—-we loved it as our very first home that we owned.   The house had been built by one of the first settlers in this area of eastern Clay County; the first name on the title deed was "Sibley"…a distinctively English name and there was a good reason for it…the first settlers of this town and its outer borders came from a village in England named "Yeovil" and that was the first name given to the town also.   The farm to the west of ours was first owned by a family named "Lewis" …which was one of the original settler names also.  The English…at least most of them—did not stay on for a long length of time like the Norwegians, Swedes, Germans and Danes who came later.  The English gradually moved to bigger places—-cities and bigger towns. The original settlers had been farmers but certainly not sod-breaking farmers so it was a bit of shock to land in eastern Clay County and find no cultivated land at all….they had been sold "a bill of goods" by the English Curate who was acting as a land agent for the NP railroad who wanted to have towns and settlements along their newly laid railroads.

But I am off the track—–the Sibleys and the people who followed them on what became our farm, had some outbuildings but they were getting pretty ramshackle by the time we occupied the farm in the late 1960s and we needed a place to store things…..so we bought what came to be known as "the Hilton" from NDSU when they sold off their oldest student housing, barrack-type of apartments.  We recognized this sort of double apartment, single story building—we had lived in one just like it at Pullman, Washington where they were referred to as "Cardboard Castles".  The ones at NDSU had been named "Silver City" because they all had sheet metal, silver- colored siding on them.  We had friends who had lived in "Silver City" and they told of getting "iced in" in cold weather. Since most of the families that occupied these barracks had small children, (and no clothes dryers) the diapers and other clothes were dried on clothes-racks…a familiar piece of collapsible laundry equipment that many of my generation knew all too well.  We did not have a clothes dryer either during our cloth diaper days (no Pampers back then) so we had dried thousands of diapers on a clothes-rack. But the steam given off by the drying clothes on clothes-racks often created the phemomenon of getting "iced in" when the moisture froze in the door spaces and made it impossible to go in or out of the apartment.  According to our friends, they would call each other for help and say "We’re iced in…can you come over here?"  and the neighbors would come with high- powered hair dryers or a bucket of hot water an get them "un-iced".

We never lived in either of the Hilton apartments, but we fixed one side up a few years after we got it for my father- in- law when we were calving out a number of my brother- in- law’s registered cattle one spring.  My father- in- law had a comfy apartment with a nice bedroom to sleep in– and go from, when he took his shifts at night- checking on the most pregnant cows who were ready to deliver their calves.  The other half of the Hilton was devoted to storage and the usual strange accumulation of "stuff" built up over several years—–old tires, a chainsaw, kerodene heater, oil stove, tools like hammers, saws, screwdrivers, planes, nails, screws, nuts and bolts, pliers….all were put in the drawers of the kitchen of of the half-Hilton.    Then one winter, early in its career, the Hilton got its name because we turned it into a heated lambing place for a few ewes we had acquired…they were purebred Ramboulliet (ram-boo-lay) ewes bred to a pure bred Ramboulliet ram who was the most eager male I have ever seen—ready to do his job when any ewe came into "heat".  We did not have a name for him but I can think of quite a few appropriate names that would have fit him….none of them that could be discussed on this blog.   On Christmas Eve, in about 1973, a very large ram lamb became the first lamb born in the Ramboulliet Hilton…we thought that name had a ring to it…like the Chicago Hilton or the Avignon Hilton if there is one there in Avignon, France!

The Hilton became the repository for stuff my father- in- law got when he went to farm auctions.  He abolutely loved the "truck bed" things that consisted of large tubs or containers of all sorts of farm flotsam and jetsam and if he saw ONE thing in one of those tubs that he wanted he would bid on and buy the whole tub.  We had a large collection of tubs full of junk stuff in the Hilton for many years from those trips he made to farm auctions around here.

When we moved to our newly- built home on another part of our farm in the fall and winter of 1975-76, all we had was the house…..no outbuildings.  So the only logical thing to do was to move The Hilton over to our new place too—which we did at considerable expense because we did not unload one stick or bolt or tub from the Hilton before it came over on a large moving truck.  It settled into its new place just east of our house and we planted a row of fast growing poplar trees which soon masked the gleaming silver sided Hilton.  My Dad always said when he came out here to do some job that required some materials or tools…."if you need it, you can find it in the Hilton."     And he was right.  By that time, both sides of the Hilton were filled with flotsam and jetsam collected from various and sundry places—-junk yards, farm auctions, Tractor Supply, Fleet Farm,—-you name a farm supply place and we had hit them all.

Finallly about 7 years ago, or thereabouts, a decision was made.  The Hilton would be torn down and the lumber and other useable materials would make a couple of swell garden sheds.   My husband and his good friend, G.H.  began the work of dismantling the Hilton.  It took one entire fall season to get it done and then they put together two awfully good garden buildings…one for us, and one for them.   My husband had saved some big navy blue steel sheets from a silo supply store that no longer did business in the area so the two buildings are sided with Harvestore blue panels.  The two garden sheds have done yeoman’s duties for a few years now.

The last of the Hilton, that could not be used in any way, went up in the biggest bonfire I have ever seen.   Our grandkids from Fargo had told Grampa to let them know the day of the Big Burn because they did not want to miss out on it.

I still think of our faithful old "Hilton" when I look at the empty place where it once stood. Rabbits lived under it during the winter and I worry about those bunnies and where they live now.   By the tracks I see in the snow, a lot of their descendants are now spending a cozy winter under the garden shed that is built from the leavings of the old Hilton.  These are the same wild bunnies that I put food out for during the winter, the ones my friends tell me will show their gratitude in the summer by eating up my tulips and other tasty morsels from spring and summer gardens.  It hasn’t happened;  we have too much alfalfa growing close by so the summer bunnies are well fed from those fields and my crops are never damaged!!!

The HIlton will always be part of our family vocabulary and our grown up boys will start a conversation by saying, "Remember when we had "The Hilton……"

And do we have any outdoor storage space now—-besides the garden shed???   Well, along the way a very large "pole barn" has been built and thereby lies a tale of a super-sized storage place for more "stuff" than the Hilton could ever dream of!!!!   The Pole Barn could be a real sore spot between my husband and my one brother in law who came one time and totally organized all the storage space in the big pole building.  He told his brother not to put ANYTHING in the large aisle in the middle—but—-if my brother in law were to announce that he was coming from Alaska to visit us—-there would be one mad scramble to clean up the Pole Barn!!!!!

Long ago, and far away—but not on another planet—-there were radio programs that people listened to and waited for every week.  I was fortunate to be able to spend part of my growing- up years in that long- ago place—-the world of radio shows like "Jack Benny" (my Dad’s favorite)…."The Bell Telephone Hour" (I developed a love of music from that one)…."The Great Gildersleeve"  (I can still hear the Gildersleeve actor saying "Leeeee—roy!" to his impish nephew)….."The Life of Reilly"  (every week D.V. O’Dell ,the friendly undertaker, would visit Reilly and Reilly would say "Oh Hi Digger")

But the one my family waited for the most was "The Fibber McGee and Molly" show that came on Tuesday nights about 8 p.m.  We were gathered in the "front room" around our furniture- like radio console,  ready for the Fibber and Molly show.  She always called him "McGee" and the highlight of every show was when Fibber  would forget about it and open the door of a certain closet.  Then we would hear Molly say, "Oh no, McGee, not that door!"    This would be followed by about 5 minutes of sound effects (some S.E. person for that show must have had a great time putting together the effects for that moment).  We would hear crashing, clattering, breaking noises…..the live audience would be in hysterics and we would be also, because Fibber had opened THE closet where they stuffed everything….and every bit of it would fall out when he opened the door.

We had a closet like that in our home.  When my parents bought our first house, it did not have many closets because it was an old house but there was a pantry type closet in the kitchen.  It became known by our family as "The Fibber Closet" because like McGee, we stashed pretty much everything in there if it did not fit into any other space at home.  I recall old clothing that had not been worn for a long time hanging in the high end of the closet…it was kind of like a room built under the eaves.. it had a sloping wall/ceiling effect.  There were shelves in there and the oddest combinations of household stuff was on the shelf—-turpentine cans,  dog food, cleaning products, a few dry rags for dusting things, some partly empty cans of paint, bug repellents, extra light bulbs…that part of the Fibber closet was really dark because there was only one light bulb for the elongated pantry-room.  I recall my Dad crawling way back in the space with a flashlight to find something he was pretty sure he had stashed in the Fibber closet.  It never got so cluttered that things fell out of it when you opened the door but it came close.  I cannot remember if the Fibber closet was ever included in big housecleaning projects….we had to have some place to stuff "stuff" and it was not possible to have it neat or organized at any given time.  If we couldn’t find something, the advice always was "look in the Fibber Closet".

We also had what was known as the "Junk Drawer".   One of the drawers in the kitchen cabinets became the Junk Drawer.  Everything went in there and it was hard to find stuff.  I remember searching in that drawer and getting stuck with something sharp….there were rubber bands, match compasses (that is what I got stuck with)  ink bottles, paper clips, a big tin container of bobby pins, hairbrushes and combs, scissors of varying sizes, pencils and pens, string balls…bits and pieces of all sorts of household detritus ended up in the Junk Drawer.

I have lived in my own home for many years now.   We never developed a Fibber Closet til we moved into our newly built home….it happened gradually.   Before the new house we never had enough closet space to HAVE a Fibber Closet, but when we got into our new home, there were LOTS of closets so little by little a closet just off the kitchen became our FIBBER CLOSET.   It was my old habit of having that sort of place from having lived with my parents for so many years.  Our Fibber Closet is the repository of a lot of "stuff".  It is where I keep a supply of saved grocery bags both plastic and paper;  I have extra flower pots in there;  there is a perfect upper shelf where the two crock pots live when they are not being used;  I have kept gardening stuff in there, especially in the summer because of the easy access to the door I go in and out of during the summer;  I have my aprons and gardening shirts in the F.C.   The difference in our F.C. and the one in my parents home is that once a year (whether it needs it or not!) I get the urge to houseclean it.  I take everything out and put it into the kitchen and it becomes hard to get around the kitchen at that point.  I wash it and dry it and put up some closet freshener thingies.  Then I put most of it back neatly, til things get out of hand once again and we are searching with flashlights (well not quite) like my Folks did.

We also have the designated junk drawer in the kitchen cabinets.   Both of us grew up with Junk Drawers but my husband did not have a true Fibber Closet I don’t think.  Well sort of—I remember a small space in the hall entry where a lot of stuff was kept.  So we come from the same heritage I guess….parents who did not get rid of things they might need (this is the Depression Era leftover behavior).

Every now and then, I decide I do NOT need all those plastic grocery bags and I will recyle a few of them but you never know when you need a good plastic bag for something!!!  We NEED the paper bags for burnable garbage.  Living in the country, you can have a "Burning Barrel"….. which is a subject all its own!

"Thermally Incompatible"……I heard this phrase on a radio ad for some special bed.  It is supposed to refer to a couple’s inability to be comfortable, thermally, in the same bed.  The special bed is supposed to solve the incompatibility problem.

I have a better idea about Thermal Incompatibility.  It is a term that is part of one of Murphy’s Later Laws….one that has actually been around for a very long time but nobody had ever expressed it….so I shall.   

  Murphy’s Law # 562,978,447:    "Any man and woman who fall in love with each other and decide to marry each other, will have two very differing internal thermostats which will cause great stress over the course of their marriage."

I have witnessed this Law personally on more than one hundred occasions (that is just an estimate)….it could mean I have seen it or experienced it up to 500 times or more.  My parents were a shining example of the Law of Differing Internal Thermostats.  My parents, when I was attuned to pay attention to the phenomena, never could agree on what temperature our home should be;  my father wanted the furnace thermostat in winter to be set and kept at about 85 degrees F.  On the other hand, my mother, who would be perspiring heavily into her summer sundress which she wore all winter, wanted the thermostat to be set at 55 degrees F.  In the course of the marriage which lasted well over 50 years before the first one passed away, they cranked the thermostat up and down so often I was amazed that it never broke….but then maybe it did…my dad was a real Mr. Fixit Man and could have replaced several thermostats over the years.   My father would get totally frustrated by the high-50 degree temperatures my mother liked and would finally  put on his winter parka over his clothing which included long underwear both top and bottom,long warm work pants,  a flannel shirt and often, a button- up -the- front long-sleeved sweater.  When he finally got all the clothing on , he would plop down into his recliner rocker, pull the parka hood down over his face, and pull a warm blanket over his legs and sit there and sulk while watching TV.  Meanwhile, my mother would be mopping her brow with a dishtowel while going about her housewifery tasks that heated her up to incredible internal temperatures.  Sometimes, she would go out in the back hall where there was no heat at all so she could cool herself down, at least,temporarily.

I got married when I was in my early 20s and soon learned that Murphy’s Law about Internal Combustion/Incompatibility is a heritable trait.  My husband turned out to be an internally frigid creature in the wintertime. When we moved into a home with a thermostat, the same battle that my parents had fought for so many years, was beginning again, in our home.  He wanted to pile about 6 warm blankets on our first double bed;  I retaliated by opening the window up in the middle of January so I could cool off.  He bought a two-control electric blanket eventually, but the heat from his side invaded my side and I slept with both legs sticking out of the covers, plus the open window from December thru April.  I recognized all the familar symptoms of this Thermal Incompatibility when he took to wearing the same sort of clothing my dad had sported.   Several layers of regular clothing plus a warm jacket if things seemed too cold in the house from my turning the thermostat down to about 60 degrees so I could get some work done around the house.  I started wearing my summer shorts and skimpy tops in the house in the winter just like my mother had worn her summer sundresses.( It was also impossible to answer the door in my "work clothes").     I also took to spending time in the cold garage to cool off after a round of heavy vacuuming, mopping, running up and down stairs, et.al. when "he" had had his go at the thermostat and it was nearly 80 degrees in the house.  These conditions got even worse after we both retired and were home most of the time—–together.

I have not come up with any solution to Thermal Incompatibility.  I have followed the same futile pathway my parents did—–cranking thermostats up and down til they fall off the wall and have to be replaced.  There is nothing new under the sun, as the wise King Solomon wrote in the books of wisdom he compiled.

As I sit here at the computer, I am wearing an ordinary pair of long legged jeans and a cotton Tee top…but then I have been sitting still most of the afternoon, visiting pleasantly  with family members and have not been working up a lather with the usual  housewifery jobs.   MBF is clad in his winter outfit—–the layered look of T-shirt, long sleeved shirt, pull- over sweatshirt with a hooded sweatshirt topping it all off.

I know my dad would be proud of him.  My mother would advise me to change into my summer clothes as soon as possible.

"The blizzard that was" —supposed to be on the weekend has arrived a couple of days late and we are in a "whiteout" at our place in eastern Clay County.  It is as bad as its been this season and reminds me of other stormy days of the past when I feared making it home alive after school would get cancelled just as a big storm was moving in and I, and others, had to drive right into it.  One of my colleagues who lived in Moorhead made it home because she followed a semi’s red tail lights.  I had thoughts about breaking a window at the Eksjo Church and crawling through it and taking shelter til the storm abated but I foolishly continued home… nearly not making it due to 100% whiteout and little- to- no visibility.  I still feel sick when I think back to that day in the awful winter of 1997 when we had only 13 days of school in January due to bad snowstorms and snow piling up to over 100 inches that winter.   I was so frightened I shook for days after that experience and when my Principal asked how it had been going home, I broke down and sobbed for several minutes much to my embarassment.  It was always worse for us going west in that bad winter—-all the storms seemed to come out of the west and not from any other directions.

Today is calm for me—-no need to worry about getting home in a bad blizzard.  I can stay home and cozy every day now and a day like today means—–baking bread.   I have it rising and soon will make it into loaves.  I remember my late neighbor Martha talking about storm days when she was a young wife living on the farm across the road from us.  Storm days then meant she could take out all her saved rags and material scraps and work on a braided rag rug or work on a piece-quilt without having to anticipate the daily round of "drop in company" because all the neighbors were snowed in.  I smile as I think of a bygone era of friendly neighbors dropping in on each other, the neighborliness of always having something ready for "lunch"….not just cookies…. but probably sandwich makings and even a bowl of jello with thick whipped country cream on top of the bowl.  The advent of television sets in every home and later, the trend for the women to be working at jobs every day, killed off the old neighborly visiting and dropping in which was so much enjoyed by everyone.  I never lived on a farm while growing up but I well remember the drop in company at my Grandma’s farm when I stayed there in the summertime.  I remmber having warm rhubarb sauce with thick cream in it for afternoon "lunch".     We had drop in company in town as well and my Mom would always have cookies baked plus try (in spite of two messy daughters who liked to play all over the house) to have the house looking decent on a daily basis.  Our set- ups of dolly hospitals and teacher’s classrooms was hard to fight if she wanted to have a totally neat house….we were the destroyers of neatness but we surely had fun using our imaginations and role playing of various occupations….as I said, all over the house with all sorts of "equipment" for our play….blankets for houses under the dining room table, chairs turned into hospital beds for sick and injured dollies and teddy bears,  desks for a classroom, the globe set up for geography lessons, papers and pencils and crayons scattered all over and when we played "store" it was even worse.  We carried our store "groceries" directly from the kitchen to set up our store in the living room.  Such wonderful memories!

GOOD BIT OF HUMOR:  Yesterday while watching the pregame things leading up to the NFL playoff games in both divisions, I saw a commercial that had me laughing til my sides hurt. I cannot remember what product it was for but it featured a CEO type who was consulting with a 12 – year old boy about countries of the world.  The CEO was telling how much he had learned about geography from the Lad who was sitting next to him with a laptop open.  The CEO said, "Why I never knew about the country of Buttheadistan and did not know it existed til I learned it today."    The boy is signaling with his eyes to the other guy, pleading with him not to give away the joke.  It really cracked me up…..my strange sense of humor always kicks in at odd times and places.

Oh woe is us!   We suffered through the painful OT ending for the Vikings last night.  We are both kind of fair-weather fans of the Vikings but our sons keep us alert about what is happening during the seasons each year.    It was tough to see the brutish Saints try to deliberately hurt the aging QB for the Vikes but I suppose the Vikings would like to do the same thing to other QBs.  It is a brutal game when it comes down to the bottom line.  Why do we love to watch such mayhem?   I have not figured it out at all.  I  know my three sons and a couple of grandsons are probably wearing black armbands of mourning today after having their hopes smashed last night.  One son probably is fighting a migraine headache today…he takes it that seriously.

Well, I have had my break from the bread punching and it is now risen to the height for making it into loaves.  I am greatly relieved that the electricity is still on and working well after I woke in the night to feeling cold and hearing no furnace humming.  We had a power outage like so many others…and I know others are still without power as I type.  Everyone has a bad time without electricity but in the rural area, it means you will not have water either since we depend on our well pumps which run on electricity.   Long ago these things were not issues….no electricity at all in the country, hand pumps outside in the bitter cold to get your water for the house….no toilets to flush…..life was good ???    I guess I would rather have the conveniences we have but I am so grateful to the men/women who go out from rural power companies in these bad weather situations and probably climb poles in 40-50 mph winds with equally appalling wind chills to fix the breakdowns for us, who depend on our electricity so much.   They do not get the thanks they deserve and some people even complain about the lack of service if the electricity does not come back on instantly.  What wretches we can be toward these working people who have to go out in the worst weather on our behalf.

I say a thank you and say how much I appreciate those who had to leave warm beds on our behalf in the middle of a bad night of wind and blowing snow that caused power outages in so many places.  You do NOT earn enough for the work you do in tough times like today and last night!!!

We have a rather significant layer of ice, frozen slush and now-accumulating snow on the deck…this is my test plot for driving conditions, et al.  So I am staying "put" for as long as it keeps up.

Last night the beginning of the icy rainfall took me right back to a night in 1979—-it was January 14  then.   An icy rain freezing on the surface of everything began late in the afternoon that day in 1979.  I had been baking cinnamon rolls that day in preparation for a birthday party brunch the morning of January 15. I was the hostess for that month’s round of birthdays among the Country Girls, as we called ourselves.  Tomorrow was Bette’s birthday and all of the other CG’s were coming to my home for a 10 a.m. brunch and lots of good converation, stories and laughter.  But as the icy rain began to pile up into 2 solid inches of frozen icy surface I was sure we would have to postpone our birthday party for a few days.  I was about to pack up the cinnamon rolls for the freezer when the doorbell rang.  This came as a shock, since I thought NOBODY would be out and about in this mess of icy weather. But I was wrong…..Bette, the birthday girl’s family was trying to get home from town and had not made it up the hill on HIghway 10 just east of the town.  Nobody else had made it up that stretch either but Bette’s husband, a wily country-roads driver thought he could get home via the gravel back roads….even the big hill that led to Hiway 10 a couple miles east of our place.  It had not worked.  The gravel roads were also covered with 2 or more inches of solid ice by that time (it was also terribly dark, I recall).  So the carload of people which included their young son and a box of puppies that had to accompany Bette to her job as the local librarian that day, their neighbor Helen with her bag of groceries (she had slipped backwards down the Hiway 10 hill)… and 2 students from tropical and hot Nigeria were also in the car…plus the box of pups. 

I answered the door and 9- year old Freddie came in carrying the box of puppies.  He was followed by the rest of the car passengers, including the Nigerian students who had probably never seen such weather in their entire lives.  When they explained that they had had to drive the car in reverse for the past 3 miles from the big gravel road hill, we knew they would be staying the night.   I rescued the cinnamon rolls from their planned stash in the freezer and began to whip up the biggest batch of scrambled eggs I had ever tried to make. Our breakfast would be eaten tonight!  After eating, drinking a pot of coffee, with the boys (our 2 sons and their Freddie) and the Nigerians drinking the last of the milk in the refrigerator, we sat down to chat and play a few games to while away the evening. Then about 2 -3 hours later, the two tough icy road drivers (my husband and Bette’s husband) decided to check things out on the gravel roads again.  They returned to report that "it wasn’t so bad now" as snow was falling and covering the ice , providing a bit of a base for driving once again.  So the carful of home-bound passengers, including Helen and the Nigerian students (and the puppies) piled into our car and managed to make it up the gravel hill and home to Bette’s place.  Then my husband returned with Bette’s husband and they got the other car home.  Meanwhile, back at Bette’s ranch, the Nigerians were preparing to drive back to Fargo with the car they had bought from our friends that day.  They were dressed in summer jackets and light shoes made of canvas.  Neither of them had any experience driving on ice and snow but they took off with the car about 5 hours after the whole crew had landed on our doorstep.  Helen forgot her head of cauliflower in our refrigerator and I eventually found it much later, all black and rotten, and threw it away.  The students made it back to Fargo somehow.  Everyone else was safe and sound in their nice warm homes.

A few months later our friend (Bette’s husband) got notices from the Fargo Police Dept. about traffic tickets he had NOT paid.  Apparently the Nigerian students did not know about parking laws et. al….. or registering a car in their name, either.

  The night of January 14, 1979 was finally resolved when the tickets were taken care of….but NOT by Bette’s irate husband.   I always think of that memorable night when icy rain begans to fall and stick to highways and everything else!

"Our customer from Sioux City commissioned us to build him a simple, pine casket.  Rope handles, no finish,no hinges,no interior.  Just a bare-bones box.  He told me he wanted to make a statement:  the casket is simply a vessel for another vessel that we are done with. There’s no reason to get carried away."   (Loren Schieuer, woodworker and casket maker from Pierson, Iowa, just east of Sioux City)

One of the final chapters in GRAVE MATTERS is titled "A Plain Pine Box".  It follows the story of Ed McKenna, a retired SWift plant worker from Sioux City, Iowa who wanted his funeral and coffin to be as plain and simple as possible.  Ed remembered the funerals of his youth which had featured plain wooden caskets and simple burial rites.  He especialy remembered the "laying out" of his Grandmother Justina in 1925—in her own home in a wooden coffin that had been built by her nephew, a carpenter.  On the third day, the pallbearers came to her home and carried her simple coffin to a horse-drawn wagon, which mourners had followed on foot, to the cemetery.  Straddling the grave, Justina’s pallbearers lowered her coffin into the ground, without any vault or other coffin covering.  Her grandson Ed McKenna wanted the same kind of coffin and the same kind of burial.

It is still possible to have this sort of burial in the United States.  No federal or state law requires you to purchase a coffin from a funeral director.  You can make a coffin yourself or buy one from a "third-party" whether it is a carpenter/woodworker who builds wooden coffins or if you order it from a company like Costco.  The funeral home you deliver it to is compelled to accept it without charging you an extra fee for handling it.  A "handful of states" including Louisiana, Oklahoma, Virginia still require the coffin to be purchased from a funeral home.          The Funeral Consumers’ Alliance maintains a good though somewhat dated onlikne list of some five dozen coffin makers.  You can get an updated list by simply googling the words "plain wooden caskets/coffins".  I googled those words and got many websites of makers of simple wooden coffins.  Loren Schieuer, the coffin maker and woodworker profiled in this chapter offers three kinds of coffins:  pine ($800. with a small extra charge for lining the box; oak, $1200 includes upholstery in the coffin;  and Mission for $2,500.00.  For information:  Schieuer Woodworks, 211 Main Street/ Pierson, IA/ 51048.  Phone 712-375-5316;  www. schiwoodworks.com.

There is also a "What you need to know" section in the chapter summary.   Most cemeteries require a vault, buried concrete, or a plastic "box" which prevents the casket from ever touching the ground and the body from fully rejoining the elements of the earth.  Before purchasing cemetery space, ask if there is any ground on site for a non-vaulted burial or if in place of a vault you can use a concrete burial liner..which is open at the bottom.  If you bury in Vermont or New York you can, per state law, refuse the use of a vault for unspecified religious reasons. (Jewish and Islamic believers are ALWAYS un-embalmed and usually laid to rest in simple wooden , non-vaulted graves)

The other final chapter that was most interesting to me was "Backyard Burials".  This is a new trend that recaptures the beginnings of our nation when family burial grounds were the norm.  It was simple then to have a family burial ground on your own property since most people lived on rural farmsteads.  Two  recent examples of " backyard burials" are that of Elvis Presley who is buried on the grounds of his home, Graceland, and of Bill Cosby’s son Ennis, who is buried in a backyard grave on his father’s property and family estate in Shelburne, MA.

A few states, California, Indiana, and Washington require their residents to bury their dead in established cemeteries, unless, in the case of Washington, they are interring someone on their own island.   Other states allow for family burial grounds.  Some states place restrictions on where the burial ground may be placed—a certain distance from bodies of water, neighboring residences, utility poles and the like.  Also there are regulations for the amount of soil placed atop the coffins…anywhere from 18 inches to four feet.   If you live in a state that permits home burial grounds you will still need to meet county, municipal or town regulations.  Contact your county/ town officials for details of regulations.  One thing I learned from watching a DVD of a British mystery series (an unlikely source of information) is that a home burial grave can deter any wild animal interest in it by burning a rather large bonfire atop the covered grave after the burial and before the final grooming of the gravesite and the planting of natural flowers or plants on it.  That element would be why a required depth of soil is required in home burial graves.  People who choose to establish a home burial site also might want to build a simple fence around that land as a marker of where the gravesites are for future occupiers of the property.  That information would also be included about the property for future owners.

No state law requires that a body be buried in a coffin or other container.  In a family burial place a body can be wrapped in burial cloths or shrouds before burial instead of a coffin.  No law restricts burying or scattering the ashes from the cremation of a loved one on your property.

I have come to many conclusions of my own while reading and studying the book GRAVE MATTERS.  I would highly recommend it to others who have an interest in alternative funeral/burial rites that have been established mostly since the Civil War (1860-65) when embalming became a routine practice.   I also conclude that there are many who do not like to ponder their own or their loved ones end of life matters including coffins and burials and embalming or cremation, et al.  Death is still a dreaded subject among many people and having a funeral director receive a body at the time of death shields the grieving person(s) from totallyi facing the reality of death as a natural step just like birth or middle age or old age.  I have also concluded that the alternatives to "established funeral rites" are much more to my way of thinking and feeling as far as my own death or that of my loved ones.  I have never thought that the "viewing" of a dead body is anything other than fooling oneself about the whereabouts of the person who has passed on from earthly life.  I do not want any viewing at the time of my own death and have instructed my family of this final wish. I am seriously considering having a plain wooden coffin available  for my burial (no embalming) …preferably in a family graveyard which we would have to establish without too much delay of years and years.  We have the advantage of living on our own farm which has plenty of free acres for making a family burial plot.  I especially do not want my family to have to spend thousands of dollars to lay me to rest;  I would want all that saved money to go to charities and other organizations to be used for the Living…places that I have chosen myself.     I would not want multitudes of floral arrangements either.  I would prefer one small bouquet of flowers from my own garden if it were timely; if it were not , pick up a bunch at a grocery store that sells cut flowers.  And if I should choose cremation, I would want my ashes scattered or buried either down by our "dead river" or somewhere close to where I have spent so many years planting vegetables and flowers….."plant me" also!  One of my cousins who died too young asked his family to scatter his ashes under his favorite tree in the family farm pasture….it had been "his tree" when he was a younster where he went to use it as a thinking post.           Let me go back to the dust from whence I came according to the Bible book of Genesis which describes the creation of the first man and the first woman…."from dust thou aret created, to dust thou shalt return."

This is a very readable , understandable book and it is available  through local library systems.  I got my copy from Lake Agassiz Regional Library and I would guess that it is also available through the Fargo Public Library system as well.   I urge others to read it.

If my distant friend Chance, the dog, can blog on his mistresse’s site (Far Side) I thought I would try it also.  I have never met Chance but I KNOW he is a dog and if he is like the other dogs I have met, he might bark at me and send me either up a tree or into a hidey hole in the house.  I do not trust dogs…. even the nice ones like Chance seems to be.

But I have to get down to business with the blogging because it is nearly time for my afternoon LONG nap.    It is my Slave’s birthday and I have gotten thoroughly sick and tired of her prancing around the house talking about how grateful she is….she says she is grateful to have reached yet another birthday and be in such good health—-something else about being able to put her feet on the floor in the morning and get up and walk around and enjoy the days.   What is gratitude???   I am a CAT and what I know is "My Way or the Highway"!!!

She went off to Silver Sneakers this morning (left me at home by myself since the Other One had a meeting someplace)   I have been pouting all morning…both of them owe me big time….like sitting on the lap pillows and getting petted so I can purr loudly and stick my rear end up in the air for what we call "Hiney Scratch".) I have had no attention to speak of today and that makes me feel like clawing someone or at least doing a little play-bite and a loud hiss.  I do this when I feel like it, even if I am getting attention.  If SHE touches my feet or my belly she gets a bite and a hiss and if I do not miss with my one lone paw, I can give her a taste of being cut by a razor blade as well.

Anyway she has already had an argument with the Other One today.  He says she is one year older than she says she is, because his Grandfather who was born in Norway in 1875 said that over in Norway back then, you were considered to be one year old when you were born. So she is confused….she doesn’t know how old she really is today.

My little "pea-brain" is just about worn out so I am quitting this blog and going down for my Big Nap that can last til mid evening.  Then about the time SHE goes to bed I am ready to run around and have a little playtime myself.   We shall see if I get her to cooperate tonight. She is going out to a favorite restaurant this afternoon to celebrate her Big Deal Gratitude Day.

( Hi Chance!  When are you going to blog again???)

from Miss Kitty   (aka known as "The Princess On The Pea"…I have a pile of 3 soft blankies and they are threatening to put a pea underneath them to see if I can feel them.)

A quote from the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson:

"It is to me a new and consolatory proof that whenever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government;  that whenever things go so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."         (Jefferson to a friend, January 8, 1789)