Trick or Treat

Smell

my


Feet






Give

me

something

good

to

eat!


Results of running the neighborhood country-road course in 45-minutes. We are blessed with kind neighbors Along Life's Road.

Project Pumpkin

April's

seeds.








July's

pollinated

bloom.








August's

green

fruit.











September's

harvest.














October's

cleaning,














carving,













and

outdoor

decorating.









Halloween's

spooky

fun.





This year, Noah's garden yielded two pumpkins at 14 and 11 pounds. Grammy grew the smaller two. After school today, we went to work carving away on his Project Pumpkin!

Symphonic...

Sedum










on

the

rock...






Celebrating today's garden find because of October's frosty nights.

Rhymes and Rhythms

Waiting

for

the

temperature

to

rise





to

stir

and

apply

the

sealant




to

log-sided

nooks

and

crannies








and

cedar

shingled

peaks





for a

Nordic-style

welcome

to

our

ever-evolving

home.



Hooray for a warm October day! After hours of hand-brushing, this outdoor winter preparation is complete... and so is this stage of our re-siding project. Here's looking at its Rhymes and Rhythms.

Rustling Remnants

Yesterday's

yellow

polka dots

rustled

in the wind

against a

bright blue

sky.




Two

night's

hard

frost

grounded

their

fluttering.



Now

rustling

remnants

return

to their

roots.

Memory Lane

Today I took a trip:


winding

down

the dusty lane –

lined with

towering

evergreens –



past

the little

lake cottage

once owned

by my great-great

grandma

(but that – in my earliest childhood memories – was occupied by her bachelor son, also my grandma's uncle)...

by the gate

and fence

that locks

in the yard

with the

steep

stairs (on which my mother took my tiny hand and first led me)

down to this lake's shore...

and over a few lots...

to the place that my grandma bought with her inheritance from that favorite uncle –

(the one with whom she and sister also stayed during their summer vacations with his mother/their grandma);

looking

up

the

hill

at

the

lake home my grandparents then built on their lot...

(It was the place in which – growing up – my sisters and I spent many summer vacation days.)




strolling into

my grandma's garden

to find flowers

with lavender blooms –

even now

as October ends –





returning to the lakeside

to pick out

a few souvenir stones

to take

(along with

a small bouquet)

back with me...



for an
afternoon
visit to
the nursing
home

where
Grandma
now
stays,

so that

together, we could share a trip down Memory Lane.


What a blessing Tuesday's flat tire on our new-to-us car turned out to be. Because I had to make the 90-minute drive past Grandma's place en route to the dealer to get the warranty-replacement tire, I was able to take today's trip!

Today's Sunshine...

(Hooray!)

highlights

Noah's

sunflower

head –





in

its

final

stages.




Nearly seven months have past since Noah sprouted a sunflower seed in his kindergarten class. At August's end, the plant reached 10 feet 1-1/2 inches and gained a blooming composite head.

In spite of drought, damaging hail, deer grazing on its lower leaves and two bouts of frost, this plant cycled successfully.

Today its head hangs low.

Just the center seeds remain.

Those in the outer rim have dropped out leaving behind the empty husks in a picturesque pattern.

Muted Glory

Along the trail –

where

autumn's rain

saturates

the forest floor –






out

from

under

the

fallen

leaves,






fungi

rises

up...









in

all

its

Muted

Glory.

Raining Cookies

When it rains, it pours. Sometimes, all day long.

Today at our house, rain poured outside while cookies reigned indoors – from breakfast through supper and beyond...

We started with a package of sugar cookie mix, butter, an egg, baking utensils, a can of frosting, a box of food coloring and a large dose of patience for this tedious (twice-a-year) project.

As I rolled the dough into thin sheets, Noah observed, "It rolls out like play dough... only it makes real LIVE cookies."

What makes cookies "LIVE" in the eyes of a first grader might have to do with the cookie-cutter shapes. In Noah's time, we've always used Swedish ones shaped as an old-fashioned man, woman, moose and evergreen tree. And for good measure, we throw in a mini-heart.

Today, Noah began rummaging through the drawer and said, "I wanna see if there's a frog one."

(Yesterday's wood frog experience was still fresh on his mind.)

I replied, "We've never had a frog cookie cutter."

"Oh..." he shrugged. "I really wanted a frog today."

"Well," I said. "We can set the frog timer to tell us when the cookies come out of the oven."

Noah nodded, "Yeah!"

I placed the cutters on the dough. He pressed them down, took away the scraps and formed the new balls for me to roll out. As the cookies came out of the oven, Noah counted and recorded the number on a notebook sheet. After filling five pans with 59 cookies, we had a tiny dough scrap leftover.

"I've got an idea," I said. Noah asked, "What?"

"It'll be a surprise – just for YOU!" I replied forming a wide, oval shape with two lumps at the top.

After lunch, Aaron joined our group to decorate five dozen cookies. I plopped a couple heaping tablepoons of frosting in the glass bowls that we use for dyeing Easter eggs and added a few drops of various food colorings to make a rainbow of frosting choices.

The boys began frosting base colors as I filled snack bags with colored frosting and poked a toothpick-size hole in one corner for squeezing out lines of color. Aaron said, "I love decorating cookies. This is better than dyeing Easter eggs. Cookies taste WAY better."

One cookie at a time, we each decorated a tray of four sets of men and women, a few hearts and a few trees – like the one.

Aaron still had two trees to decorate when his tune changed, "When did we start? Three hours ago? I'm done... I can't take this anymore."

"Take a break," I said. "I'll finish your trees and call you for the moose."

By the time I finished

and combined all the leftover frosting

to make a brownish color for the Moose,

Aaron and Noah were ready for the last leg.

Viola!

They finished and posed with their work.




Noah showed off his surprise – with the result from Mom's handiwork on that tiny dough scrap –

a frog cookie to match

yesterday's hibernating ones

outside... where tonight

it's still raining.

Sleepin' In: Wood Frogs

Down in the sand where the boys dug a hole,

the autumn rains made the gully even deeper.

On our after-school walk, Noah jumped in and began kicking the sand while I explored the trail.

Noah hollered, "Mom, come here! There's something really cool!"


As I neared, he held out his hands – filled with sandy wood frogs. The tiny reptiles were quite sluggish.

"You found them down there?" I asked. Noah nodded. I said, "I didn't know wood frogs hibernated in the sand. I thought they slept in swamp like the others."

This evening while surfing the web, we learned that in the late fall, wood frogs leave woodland swamps and travel upland to hibernate in upper layers of the soil or under organic litter. While Noah held one by its ribs, the wood frog spoke.

The quacking sound reminded us of the springtime chorus we hear from our front-yard swamp. (I took this wood frog photo back then.)

In April, winter's melt fills the slough and attracts all kinds of critters that need water for mating season. By mid-summer, most of our pond dries up – a perfect habitat for wood frogs that need less than two months to cycle from egg to tadpole to frog.

"You know what's really cool, Noah?" I asked. "You've got your frog T-shirt on today."

"I know," he said. We took advantage of the coincidence to shoot a couple funny photos before we left them to burrow down again.

As Noah jumped in bed tonight, I said, "Did you know a wood frog is sometimes called a 'frog-sicle'?"

"You mean like a popsicle?" he asked. I nodded, "I read that while wood frogs hibernate, their bodies' cells fill with a kind of antifreeze. Then their breathing, brain and heart beat shuts down. Their body tissue freezes, but they don't die. In the spring, the weather warms their body –"


Noah interrupted, "So that way they can wake up and smell the coffee!"

"Did you say: Smell the coffee?" I laughed. Noah nodded, "That's what our teacher tells us sometimes when we're tired and we lay our head down on our desk."

Noah yawned, "Good night, Mom."

'Good night, Noah," I said. "Tomorrow's a 'free day off' from school. So you can sleep in – like the Wood Frogs!"

Happy MEA Weekend!

"When we return home...

... then we shall live
on the memories."

Memories, a block of G35 and package of crisp bread sustain me today.

Three weeks ago, my host parents presented me with this caramel cheese from Norway. The 35-percent-goat-to-cow-milk blend tastes milder than real goat cheese. That's why I requested it when they asked if I missed anything. I received a block of both: G35 for everyday and "ekte geit ost" to save for Christmas.

It felt like Christmas as we welcomed them into our home. They showered us with gifts of Freia milk chocolate bars and wooden camping cups - everyday tokens to them. Because... they too wanted to experience everyday family life.

The result was a cultural combo.

For four days, our Minnesota home became even more Norwegian with coffee brewed daily; open-faced sandwiches for breakfast and lunch; daily outdoor exercise; mealtime conversation that rolled into "kaffe" – further conversation with dessert; and even a card game around the table before bed.

Different than the everyday hustle and bustle… truly a gift of time.

Here and there, the boys flashed their Norwegian know-how. At dinner, Noah toasted Gunn, looking her in the eye, saying "Skål" and maintaining eye contact while they clinked glasses, drank and returned the glassware to the table.

Besides homelife, they wanted to see the boys' sporting events – just as they do in Norway with their two grandchildren who match Isaac and Aaron's ages. Thursday afternoon we drove an hour to watch Isaac run a cross-country meet at St. John's University. We attempted to see Aaron play a Saturday morning football game. Unfortunately, a lightning storm caused a cancellation on our way there.


We showed

them how

Minnesota's

well-to-do

spend their

resources.



Thursday evening after Isaac's meet, we visited St. Cloud's Clemens and Munsinger Gardens.

As we toured, Gunn said, "Never would I have dreamed I'd be walking along the Mississippi River in such a beautiful garden."

On Friday's gorgeous sunny afternoon, Dan took off from work to show them Gull Lake. We boated by multi-million dollar homes and resorts on a ride to a channel restaurant for an alfresco pizza lunch. During our two-hour trip, we even spotted – on the ends of a few docks – Norwegian flags displayed by Minnesotans proud of their heritage.

Saturday after Aaron's game cancelation, we showed them the other side of life. We drove farther west through one the state's poorest counties as we traveled back roads on our way to Dan's Norwegian ancestral homestead.

Before embarking on this Midwest USA tour, they'd defined their purpose:
to see Norwegian immigrant influences.

As we reached the rolling hills and lakes of Ottertail County, they understood how topography drew in immigrants. Both commented, "It looks very much like home."

We stopped at the church that Dan's Norwegian immigrant great-great grandpa helped found in the 1873. In the adjoining cemetery lie Dan's forebears.

The congregation has served six generations of his family. Here Dan and I married fifteen years ago. Nine years later, we celebrated a Norwegian-style baptism of our youngest son here.

On this day, we entered the church. What they saw inside was familiar. The altar, the pews, the balcony, the design – all looked reminiscent of Norway.


When we returned home – after climbing Inspiration Peak for a 25-mile view, lunching at a saloon in the village of our wedding reception, 4-wheeling with the whole family in the SUV over the fields of Dan's family's farm and stopping later for a Dairy Queen treat – my host mom helped me with supper. Meanwhile, my host dad sat in our coffee nook contemplating...

He said, "When we walked inside the church, it struck me what the church here means to the people."

After driving for miles over the rolling terrain, seeing the great distances between homes and towns, asking how the church was supported, and learning it belonged to the members, he understood the church's role not only as a place of worship but also as a community support mechanism… Much different from Norway's state-supported church which is used mainly for life's big moments of baptisms, confirmations, weddings and funerals.

For an even better understanding, the next morning we took them to our local church – also with Nordic heritage. While the boys and I worked with the Sunday School classes, Dan took Gunn and Svein downstairs for Scandinavian style coffee with cakes, cookies and breads as well as a cup and conversation.

Later they found a pew for the service. Noah sat on one side beside Gunn. I joined them on the other end beside Svein. Robed in light blue with other choir members, Dan sat up front and sang four pieces with his group. During the opening hymn, Svein kneed me and pointed to the altar where Isaac and Aaron were lighting the candles as the service's ushers. Gunn and Svein smiled as Noah scurried up front to the pastor for the Children Message before his sermon. They marveled when Noah asked to go forward during Prayers for Healing.

Returning home to a soup and sandwich lunch, all seven of us joined for the last time in harmonized song before we ate.

Almost a decade ago, my maid of honor (who grew up in Gunn and Svein's Norwegian community) visited our family with her husband (then, -to-be). Dan impressed Else with his Norwegian recitation of the table prayer used by his grandparents. She taught us its melody to the tune of the doxology. It's since become our family's signature song.

Shortly afterwards, we gathered on our back step for a family portrait and good-byes before Dan drove to Minneapolis with two-fold purpose: to catch his work-trip flight to Reno, Nevada and to drop our family's Norwegian (grand)parents at their hotel to start their group bus tour of Minnesota, South and North Dakota, including a stop at Minot's famous Høstfest celebration.

On their two-week trek, they passed by places Gunn's grandfather ventured a century ago when he lived seven years in "Amerika" as a young man owning a farm the near MN/SD border, working on the railroad as it moved west and ranching as a Montana cowboy before returning to Norway to meet, marry and settle down in the homeland with Gunn's grandma.

This afternoon as I munched on my G35 cracker, I wondered whether it was Gunn's grandpa who inspired her parting words:

"When we return home, then we shall live on the memories."