Well as you can see we had Robin's in the yard, this wasn't the only one, but it is a good picture of one of them thanks to Crystalie. I am sure others of you have seen some maybe before this, but it is the first time we have seen them here. We have spent the last couple of days preparing for our trip, to see our newest grandchild and our house sitters are coming in shifts, over the time we are gone, to watch over all the critters and fuel the wood stove and take care of Tootsie and Smarkle. So look forward to something new and exciting posts!

Well I don't have a picture, but we had company last night for supper. We enjoyed grilled steaks, garlic seasoned mashed potatoes, and fresh salads, and also some fresh homemade rolls, and for desert a nice chocolate brownie served warm with a little scoop of ice cream. It was all great and we enjoyed catching up on her busy life and also things going on with the two of us.

It was our close friend Colette, who is a longtime friend of Crystalie's that she has worked with at various restaurants in her younger years, and since those days they have always been close. And Crystalie's friend became my friend many years ago and I also am her handyman for odd jobs around her place.

Colette is a golfer and her and I play golf together few times every summer, which usually ends with the three of us enjoy a nice meal together.

She is a good golfer also and her and I play fairly close to each other score wise but many times she ends with the best score. But I chalk it up to the fact she plays 4-5 rounds every week and works at her game a lot more than I have time to do. But none the less it is always and fun and a good challenge.

We are busy making our plans to visit the new grandson Miles, and his Mom and Dad. We are both looking forward to some new baby time and lots of pictures and time with Raquel and Eric.

Plus seeing a part of the country I have not been to!

We had a visitor today, Crystalie's mom Faith, stopped by for lunch. Which gave her a chance to catch up on what we have been doing and also see a bunch of Crystalie's finished items for Wooden Nichols. We had leftovers actually of "Dad's Hotdish" and enjoyed the conversation, and showing her a few things around the farm.

Like Smarkle's trick, eating the treat that is placed on her nose. She got to see the new stairs int he backbarn studio, that I put in a while ago. Then she was off to Mitch and Kay's house to see them and of course Jacob and Josuha.

I spent the afternoon finishing a special project, and then watching some of the basketball on tv and also the end of the NASCAR race, held in California. I of course played fetch with Smarkle for a while, to tire her out some, before coming in the house for the rest of the evening, except for a bathroom break or two before bedtime.

All in all a nice day, lots of sunshine but not very warm, the temp hardly got above 30 degrees. So the last snow we got last week, is sticking around a lot longer than we would like, but not much we can do about it here.

I took care of getting supper ready so I made one of my own dishes, a hotdish that the kids labeled "Dad's Hotdish".

Here is what goes into it..

1 lb or 1.5 lbs - browned and seasoned hamburger
3 - cups of Elbow macoroni
1 - pint of homemade spagetti sauce
1 - can of diced tomato's or a pint of stewed tomato's
1 - can of Bushes baked beans

Mix all the ingredients in a 6 quart casarole dish, and then top with grated cheese or 5 or 6 cheeses slices.

Cook in the oven at 350 degrees, covered for 45 minutes or so, and then uncover for 15 more minutes

Then also if you have them, Pillsbury Buttermilk Biscuts, go great with this warm hotdish.

The nice thing is it also makes enough to feed 4-6 people, or less and then you have some good leftovers.

This is another picture my photographer, Crystalie took today. This place is close to her Dad's place, an old farmstead, with the silo and one old building left. The barn is gone, which would have been attached to the silo, much like a barn we lost probably.

This scene always evokes thoughts of, what was it like in it's living days... as now it is just a solemn reminder of the era gone by. Being a farmboy from North Dakota, I have witnessed this all of my life, and even now the farm I grew up on is becoming a similar scene. Buildings disappearing, and tree lines that once were healthy growing trees, have aged and now are rows of trees, that are dead or dying, or broken from the hard winds of the prairie.

I think we all realize, that things change, and as modern technology as evolved we see so many changes in everything we do. As a Midwesterner, or living in fly over land, many of us come from a heritage of a farming community. Which brings us memories of hard work, and a time when work was never done, and there was a long list of daily chores, that demanded much of the time of the day and all of the bodies energy and muscle.

We have felt the joy of raising a crop or livestock, that later provided us substance through the winter. It is a farm thing...a dirt thing...a way of life thing...a way of life that is slowly disappearing...

If you want to see the changes or learn more...National Geographic did and article on North Dakota ...the link is here
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/emptied-north-dakota/bowden-text.html

If you want to see how hard the life was on the prairie in Minnesota, rent the movie "Sweet Land" a movie that shows what many of our fore fathers and mothers faced day after day.

I don't mean for this to be depressing, but just an acceptance of an era gone by but one that in my memories shares a special place, as it does in many of yours also I hope!

Crystalie, also took this photo to day in route to her Dad's house delivering some homemade TV dinners for her Dad.

Yes, even though it was about 10 above last night, when we had some sunshine, and a little warmer day, these pussy willows popped out. So don't despair, Spring is coming just a little slowly!

Thanks dear for the great pic!

Crystalie, snapped this picture last night before she let the dogs in for the night.

Tootsie and Smarkle, are watching the driveway awaiting my arrival home, she said they were out there for a while waitng to see me when I come down the driveway.

The problem was I was not coming home, as I was gone overnight for work, so they probably were a little dissapointed, until they got a treat.

But it is nice to know they were waiting to see me when I normally would arrive!

Yes, the 4 letter word has appeared again, we had about 8 inches and it blew so hard last night. leaving most of the snow in my driveway.

So I worked from home today and then spent 2 hours plowing out the driveway this afternoon. I am glad I did not take my plow off the tractor. There was no way I would have gotten through the 2 plus feet in the corner of the driveway heading into the trees, in spots it was 30 inches deep.

The wind blew hard all night and really howled around midnight to 4 am, after that it let up a little. Our little windmill needs some repairs, it seems the vibration loosened more screws and it will be something to fix this weekend.

Smarkle spent the 2 hours following me up and down the driveway as I plowed. So hopefully she got enough exercise, so she is tired out for a bit, she gets restless when she isn't outside or does enough wandering around the yard.

Tonight is Survivor night and Pizza, so it is an easy night for a supper plan.

Crystalie has spent the day doing a bunch of hand sewing, and we squeezed in one game of scrabble after we had lunch and before I went out to plow the S_ _ _.

Well we have not had much Sunshine, since last Friday and now a late March Storm is going to be hitting us the next two days.

We may get 4-8 inches of the "white stuff", so say the weather terrorists that I listen to. Just when a lot of the "white stuff" is almost gone.

I will not use the 4 letter word S_ _ _ on this blog as we are all tired of it and we all were hoping we would see an early spring, rather than more of the "white stuff".

The deer have been coming onto my golf practice range and snacking on the green grass that is being exposed by the receding "S _ _ _".They have been out in the pasture a lot eating what is being exposed out there also, and the Llamas are doing the same, even though they have a huge bale of hay to pick at all day long.

I filled the water tank today, even though it wasn't to low, but better to do it when it isn't storming outside.

We are making plans to visit the new Grandson Miles soon, and it will be a lot of travel time but well worth it. I talked to the new mommy Raquel, today and everything is going really well, and she says he is changing daily(and lots of diaper changing also), and eating well. The biggest battle for her is getting enough rest, feedings every 3 hours or so are making it hard for her to get a lot of rest, but she is catnapping when she can.

We spent the last day and half eating up the left overs from Matias and Jennifer's visit over the weekend. Which for us just makes it easy to fix something to eat!

Well time to eat, and enjoy our cozy living room, while watching some TV tonight.

This is the view out of our living room window looking to the west. See all that water on the ice, there was enough of it, so with the wind blowing this evening, it actually made waves on the large area's of water.

Tonight the neighbor's yard light is reflecting off of the water on top of the ice. Which is weird to see again, but another sign spring is not far away.

Contest time.....put in a date for when you think the ice on Coffee Lake will be completely gone. Last year it was out on March 29th and we have seen it in the lake later than April 20th, in past years...make a guess and I will come up with a prize to the one closest to that date give an AM or PM with your date. As we have seen both!

Okay, we now have lots of puddles all over the yard, all over the ice on top of the lake and in the driveway.

Yes it may not sound exciting, but Crystalie heard and saw a Canadian goose, which came gliding over the creek bed, where there is open water.
We always get some early geese in the creek area, and about May 1st they will bring the newly hatched gosling's up on to the lawn down by the lake.

The other thing we are hearing is the sound of our male Cardinal serenading the lady cardinal, in the mornings when I go out to fuel the stove before I leave for work.

Speaking of my wood stove, I had to turn down the water temperature a little, came home to find Crystalie opening the front door to let out some warm air. The stove does a heat dump when the water gets to hot, by running the fan in the house till the circulating water cools down enough in the stove. So I just turn down it's fan thermostat about 5 degrees and it ends the heat dump problem.

It may not freeze tonight which will help the snow disappear even faster!

The big warm up as started! Yeah

We had temps in the low 30's with a warm sun shining most of the afternoon. Which helped start the melting process, and tonight we are barely going to get below freezing, with a chance of rain later tonight and tomorrow morning.

I arrived home to a muddy driveway and a flow of water going through the yard, and the bare spots growing larger along the pine trees and in the yard where the snow was plowed off.

I took time to play fetch with Smarkle, who became all wet running through the puddles, and the water flying off her feet as she raced after the ball. With the ground exposed, her stride makes a lot more noise and she was having fun running on the bare spots, instead of the icy driveway and yard.

I did have to do a little repair on one of the rain gutters on our back deck, the wind and snow off the roof, had pushed one piece apart. I needed match up the seams and then re-nail it and I put a few extra screws through the metal into the fascia on the house. Should be good to go...

Also cleaned out all the pine needles that had filled it up over the late fall and winter.

This is a tray of freshly planted seeds, in some seed starting soil.

Crystalie, planted 5 trays of seeds today, and this is part of our spring ritual. Crystalie, starts a bunch of seeds, for the Stanley Family Garden Club, this means Spring is coming even though we have lots of snow left.

These soon to be plants will be transplanted later into other trays, and they will move in to the little greenhouse (it was 62 degrees in there this afternoon with the bright sunshine), where they will continue their growth.

It was about 30 degrees today and not to windy, so we took Smarkle and Tootsie for a walk on leashes to the mailbox, to get yesterdays mail.
Crystalie, worked with Smarkle on the leash and had her heeling pretty good by the time we got to the mailbox, and she was really good on the way back.

Crystalie, has a very disciplined nature when training the dogs and she is very consistent with the process, which helps them learn quickly. All in all it was a good first time, we will work with Smarkle a little more and it will be old hat for her. She is like a sponge and is willing to learn, and does so quickly.

Other then that, I finished my receipt pile, getting it all totaled up and the results entered on the preparers paperwork, and I will be dropping off my paperwork with the tax preparer later this week.

It felt good to get out for the walk, and something we need to do more of as the weather begins to warm up.

Well, many of you know this, but I am a Scrabble player...

Along with many of you, and I have 6 plus online games going at a time, and then we play games at home on a board. When we get together with family or friends, we also play a game if time allows.

Tonight we are visiting Tina and Scott, Crystalie's sister and brother-in-law in Aitkin, for a night of food and Scrabble. We try to get together every so often to do this, to visit and enjoy 2 or 3 challenging games of Scrabble over a meal.

Playing 4 person games, tend to go fairly fast, and usually we get 3 games in before we call it a night...which is usually around 8:30 pm or so. 3 of the 4 of us, are not your late night type of people, I would be the one who is up late usually.

So wish me luck, and hopefully everyone will like the devils food chocolate cake I am bringing for dessert. I know Tina will have something wonderful for supper!

What a pile of receipts....

I am prepping our information to get our taxes done for 2010. Hence the pile of receipts on the coffee table in the living room.

Because of the farm and Wooden Nichols and our my own personal expenses for my job, we have been working with a tax preparer each year. Which means we have to pull together all of our information, and the receipt pile is part of that process. As you can see I have them sorted, from the little drawer where we stash them during the year.

I also go through all the utility statements for each property, the farm and store, and total them up and organize them for storage. which I have done already. My next step is to go through these stacks, and total up the amounts for auto expenses, supplies, farm repair bills and parts, postage, medical, and store purchases for resale. That is tomorrow's job!

Once I have those totals, I can fill out the tax prep papers that are preparer sends us, and then drop off the paperwork that is all generated, along with w-2s and and other statements, at their office.

Then prior to April 15th, I will mail in our taxes! yeahhhh...

Paco, one of our younger male llamas, has been dealing with sore hips and back left leg. About 10 days ago, the males were scrapping with each other and we think Paco ended up going down on some ice in their pen. It seems he might have done the splits with his rear legs, or he has a groin pull on his left rear leg.

This has made it difficult for him to get up, and I have literally had to help him up by grabbing his rear end when he tries to get up and lift him a little to get his feet under him. After that he can move around slowly, but he is not to staple.

But the last 2 days he seems to doing better, and he can pretty much get up by himself, but I sometimes just have to make him get up, so he gets his circulation going in his legs. He either camps out next to the hay bale in the pen or in the shed depending upon the weather.

Crystalie, also implemented an aspirin program for him, by feeding him 7 aspirin in a little grain daily, which he does not hesitate at all to eat. It seems to remove some of his discomfort and he tends to stay on his feet for a while before he lays back down. He seems to be getting plenty to eat, and drink.

Hopefully the field will lose more snow next week, and at that point the llamas will wander around more picking at the remnants of the fall grass covered by the snow. Which in turn will get Paco some more exercise.

Yeah, the new power supply arrived and has allowed me to get back on my laptop. I may be a post or two behind, but I will probably make-up for it in the week to come.

In light of the fact we now have a Grandson, as I shared earlier in the week. Miles and mom and dad, were at home in their own beds about 27 hours after his birth. Wow right!

They are all doing fine and have had lots of visitors, including Raquel's mom Marcy, and her Grandma Jeanne. Eric's parents and brother and sister have been there also checking on their first grandchild! Nice way to impress the in-laws right... just teasing Raquel and Eric.

At home today it is Friday and we reached mid 30's so we so some more snow melt but tonight we are going to get a blast of snow and wind, and maybe some rain to start it all off.

Watch for my Llama update later, we have been playing nursemaid lately.

Yep, it is Wednesday and it is Survivor night again, and also Pizza night.

Pretty simple around here on Wednesday nights, but that is okay. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago Survivor is one of our guilty pleasures for reality TV. So far the new season has been very entertaining, with some wacky characters, and some dumb and bold moves by the game players.

It was cold today, but warming up some, and the next day may bring us a touch of snow but warmer temperatures..it was - 9 degrees this morning.

For work, I attended a Brainerd Chamber event at Breezy Point Resort, for what they call a Chowtime. Lunch was a fajatia buffet line, and it tasted good to have some Mexican food, and the event had about 4o people.

We get to do some shameless self promotion about what we sell or do, and I go to a couple of these events each month along with other meetings, and that revolve around networking and getting to know what various people and businesses do. As you can tell I have no problem, meeting people, and of course visiting with them, and also educating them as to what I sell or do.

Here is the website fo the Magazine I sell advertisng for..check it out...

www.lakecountryjournal.com

Enjoy, if you haven't seen before, we are all pretty proud of how it looks and it's content.