The Shack

No deer harvested this year for us. Bernie and Bing hunted but never saw a buck. I'm always happy to have the deer hunt over because it seems safer walking outside now and there isn't a need for blaze orange outer clothing. Bing took some pictures of the hunting shack which is about an hour away from here. Bing's dad and five friends from Milwaukee built it in the fifties

and it's getting kind of shaky with a leaky roof and crumbling siding. Only one man of the six builders is still alive. He finally stopped hunting two years ago but he must really miss it because he called Bing three times this season to see how the hunt was going.

Hermit Days

There is a craving in my heart. It's a craving for silence and I think it's completely normal but quite rare in this age of carrying communication devices everywhere we go and the age of listening to custom made music play lists everywhere we go. I do believe silence is a forgotten commodity and that the soul needs periods of silence to grow and develop, to cause the brain to reflect and introspect, to see what's working and what's not working in our lives. This is the opening of deer hunting and deer hunting weekend has always been a looked foward to set of days for me. It lets me be a hermit for a few days - no need to talk or interact or be the mom or the cook or the laundress, etc. I can just be. I might have descended from a hermit who must have left his or her cave for a conjugal fling. There have been relatives that preferred the non social life and at least for a couple of days a year, I can relate..........................On a different note, winter weather has finally arrived up here. We had a greatly extended mild Fall and enjoyed spreading all our fall chores out over many weeks. Just this Thursday I completed the raking of the hillside and that feels so good to finish it before the snow accumulates. Tony asked me the other day, why I rake the hillside every Spring and Fall and it kind of puzzled me for a moment. I've done it for decades. I answered that I liked the way it looks after it's raked and that I love being outside working but later I realized that it's much more than that. I love the physical challenge of it and knowing that I'm still up to the challenge of clinging to the vertical rises, bracing myself against small tree trunks to keep my footing, crawling here and there to reach inaccessible crannies and dragging all the leaves on a big silver tarp to soften my pathways for walking. I love seeing the green moss uncovered from the bronze oak oeaves and I like to keep

all the little elder brush and popple sprouts from turning the hillside into a bramble. I keep a trusty pruning shears in my sweatshirt kangaroo pocket and whip it out every few feet to ward off the sprouts. Every year there are so many baby fir trees that eventually when I can't keep up my billy goat antics, maybe the hillside will be a picturesque fir forest. I've included a couple of pictures of the project but as usual, "you just gotta be there" to rake it all in." Pun intended.

Halloween Fun

Halloween is fun and it has been fun for years. Our grandchildren enjoy it thoroughly just as my brothers and I loved running from house to house in Chicago over sixty years ago. I love to watch kids enjoying dress up whether it's Halloween or not - they can be whomever they want to be. We din't get to see the youngest little grandchild who's out in Portland, Or but the little Red Apple/ Star Trek Captain had a couple of little dress ups for his first halloween.

The Pictures have been Found

Trying to Find the Pictures

Well, I'm trying to find the pictures of John and Paul but the other computer of this homegroup doesn't want to give them up. It's probably a simple fix. I'll be back!

Pictures from Last Post

The Poetry of Life

Life is a poem - it has rhythm and grace. It has phrases that have no decipherable meaning and it has momentous meaning. It roars and it softly tickles the bottom of your feet. It moves swiftly toward a conclusion but doesn't give you time to really figure everything out. I like these words from Mary Oliver's poem, "When I Am Among the Trees" - ....never hurry through the world but walk slowly and bow often." I also like these words from Rabbi Rami Shapiro: "When you admit to life's complexity and to your unknowing, you discover you need do nothing with your life except live it - humbly, simply, kindly, and justly - trusting in life to offer you one opportunity after another to make the world a little better for you having been born into it. Nothing confusing about that.".............Well, Bing and I have been doing just that since I last added to the mish mash of this blog........We've had a visit with my brother,Paul, and his wife, Marianne. It's always fun to be with them because we've shared so much of life with them

through the years. There's a picture of the four of us attached. We look like the tribal elders that we are but inside there still lie the hearts of little kids.....souls in the latter part of their luminous journey on this beautiful Earth, but still souls with so much to learn.......There are pictures of two of our granchildren next to their lockers at school. We were treated to a wonderful Grandparents' Day at their kindergarten and 2nd grade classes. That was so great to see them so excited about the beginning of their education............We also had a visit from two good friends who like to come in the Fall and fish and visit. John is from Montana and Paul is from Arizona. It was a bit nippy while they were here so one picture shows Arizona Paul all dressed up in winter clothes to fend off the unArizona temperatures. We really laugh a lot and eat a lot when we have these visitors. They both live alone so it's fun to cook for such appreciative eaters. The picture with the tripod shows how the guys cook their french fried potatoes and walleyes over the campfire. It's a shore lunch in the backyard! ...........Well I think I'll post this and get back to "slowly walking and bowing often."