Visitors From The East

Let me begin with an aside. Spring has come early, and the daffodils are amazing this year. These are gathered around the foot of our bur oak tree, the tree that friends gave us eleven years ago in memory of my father's passing. Of course, the tree always brings back fond memories of dad, especially so this spring.

Last Sunday evening, our friends David and Robert arrived for a short visit. David is a good friend of mine dating back to 1973 when he worked at the local Wesley Foundation. They had been touring the country by car for several weeks and stopped by to see us as they worked their way home (New Jersey). We had lots to catch up on, as we are only able to see each other every couple years. On Monday, we enjoyed a lunch at Takanami. That night, we treated them to a dinner at Orchard Green. Conversation is always lively over good food and drink.

David loves to photograph flowers and other interesting plants, so I guess the picture of the daffodils above isn't really too much of an aside. Before they got back on the road on Tuesday afternoon, David spent quite a bit of time in our yard photographing these flowers plus our redbud, flowering crab tree, lungwort, and other blossoms. Robert even snuck a picture of David while he was flat on the ground getting a closeup of some flowers. Here we all are just before they boarded their car to head back east. It was great to see them! Wish we were all closer! If things work out, they may be able to visit us at the lake in September.

Eleanor's Bed

Awhile ago, Rob asked me to make a new bed for Eleanor. He found a plan for what I think of as a dormitory-style loft/bunk bed with a center storage and display area and a trundle bed below. The plan didn't allow for disassembly or moving the unit once it was finished—all construction was to be done in the spot where the bed was to be used. I was able to alter the plan so that it consisted of several distinct parts and used traditional bed frame hardware to lock the parts together. Here is how it looked in my basement when nearly completed but not yet finished.

Because Rob has some temporary physical constraints due to a hernia repair, he was not able to help much with the moving process. So he cashed in some favors with two friends who came out to help us. I think he probably now owes them a substantial favor or two in return. Here we are after having loaded everything into my pickup. Even with having made the bed to be disassembled, there were still several heavy pieces. The center unit (shelves and drawers), I now realize, should have been made a different way so as to make it easier to move—it was plenty long and quite heavy.

The first piece to head upstairs to Eleanor's room was the headboard. (By the way, many of these photographs are blurry—sorry about that. Everything was happening so fast, that we didn't take time to let the camera focus properly.)

Everything else waited outside for more trips up the steps.

This piece is the top, where the bed mattress goes. The space behind the shelf unit is open along the length of the bed and has doors at each end so that the space can be used as a small closet or storage area. That rod you see on the piece below is a bar for hanging clothes.

As I said earlier, the middle shelf unit is big and awkward and was a bugger to get upstairs. We may have dinged the wall paint a couple of times. Also, it was exactly 80" long and had to go on end through an 80" door. That was a squeaker! Literally!

However, we finally got all the parts into Eleanor's room and began putting the bed together.

Rob and I were relieved when we were done and it all locked back together properly.

Eleanor had been very excited about being able to sleep "up high." Here she is after successfully completing her first climb up the ladder.

She and her friend checked out the drawers and the trundle bed too. Eleanor likes to call the trundle bed a "people drawer." I understand she is now sleeping comfortably in the bed each night.

St. Patty's Day

When I had my annual physical one year ago, my doctor said that the best thing I could do for myself was to lose some weight. I decided that by the time of this year's physical, I would try to get to 200 pounds. (I had been as high as 223 during this past year.) This morning, I weighed just over 199. That was before the events of this afternoon.

It is St. Patty's day, and for the last several years, our very good friends Dick and Rina have joined us for some beers and a corned beef and cabbage dinner at Micky's in downtown Iowa City.

After this tasty food and a few Guinness beers, we wandered around downtown and eventually splurged on some ice cream as well. Then, we came back to our place and watched a fun movie and enjoyed some red wine (Guinness and red wine are supposed to be healthful, right?).

Well, whatever! We had lots of fun, and I'll just have to starve myself before seeing the doctor on Monday. One has to splurge once in awhile.

Snow Fun

We just concluded a great weekend with Will, Sandy and Anders. All of this wonderful snow created lots of opportunities for play. Anders and I started out with a short snowshoe trip. I like the tiny snowshoes his dad made for him.

When we walked by the garage, Anders asked what the building was for. I told him we stored our boat there during the winter, so he wanted to see it. Of course, this included his wanting to try out the driver's seat and steering wheel. He said his boat at his lake is smaller (a canoe).

We made a snow house by tunneling into one of the larger piles of snow that resulted from various plowing and shoveling activities.

He liked climbing on top too.

Next, we smoothed an area for some sliding. Grandma had found a deeply discounted saucer sled when we were in snowless Minneapolis. Up here, there was ample opportunity to use it.

The stairs made getting back to the top quite easy.

Naturally, some falling off the sled is necessary at the bottom of the run.

Kelso and Tighe played and played and played some more. In the evenings, they were generally pretty wiped out.

Sandy, Kathie and I worked on a couple of picture puzzles.

Anders took a bath and then tried out grandma's sweatshirt as a bath robe.

On Sunday, we went for a long outing on the lake.

Anders wasn't sure whether he wanted to ride in the toboggan, ski, or snowshoe. He did some of each.

Kelso even got to ride part of the way. We probably did about 3.5 miles on the lake, and that little guy surely got a little worn out trying to walk through the deeper snow.

Anders is good at lifting his snowshoes.

Just a boy and his dogs out snowshoeing across the lake.

Kathie got this shot of us approaching the cabin from far across the lake.

Eventually, Anders was too tired to keep going on his own.

His grandpa also slowed and brought up the rear.

When we finally made it back, Anders was either asleep or faking it in hopes that his dad would carry him up to the warm cabin and some hot cocoa. Of course, his dad welcomed the opportunity to do just that.

Unstranded!

I suppose you might be saying, "Enough with the snow pictures already!" Maybe these will be the last for awhile (until Will, Sandy and Anders come for the weekend). A friend said recently that he hoped I was enjoying winter now, because I had been complaining about not having one.  Well, I am enjoying this (I won't likely ever be one of those so-called snowbirds who flee south in the winter). The beautiful scenery, the chance for snow-based recreation and exercise, and the fun of being in the woods in a cozy cabin are all great things.

Anyway, a good guy named Pete came by with his trusty Kabota tractor with attached snow blower (rear) and blade (front) and got us unstranded. The scenes below mostly speak for themselves, but I thought you would like to see how truly deep the snow was. I didn't relish the thought of digging us out by hand.

On the other hand, smaller areas, like our lake-side deck have given me plenty of opportunity for exercise. I actually enjoy being out and doing things like this, and the work helps me keep losing weight. (Have I mentioned that since November I'm down about 15 pounds?)

Still Stranded!

The snow finally quit falling during the middle afternoon. Because it was fairly warm (just above freezing), the snow was quite heavy. This weight and the depth of it kept our neighbor, who usually keeps our driveway plowed, from being able to move the snow with his ATV-mounted equipment. So, our road and our driveway still have not been cleared. There is hope, however, that our neighbor's friend, who has a tractor-mounted blower and plow, will be able to get here today to free us. Until then, we aren't going anywhere.

I did lots of scooping yesterday. I cleared our two entryways and made areas for the dogs to get out, and I scooped the snow off our lake stairs. You may ask why I would bother to do the latter, since we obviously aren't going down to the lake to do any boating. The reason is that I like being able to get down that way to go snowshoeing or skiing on the lake. I also managed to get our car unburied yesterday afternoon. It had about 15" of snow all over it, which I brushed off. Then I cleared about 3' of space all around the car so that when our driveway is plowed, the car can be freed too. Needless to say, I got quite a bit of exercise yesterday of a sort different from my walks or snowshoe or skiing trips.

Tighe continues to bound around in the snow, and unfortunately, he loves to harass the birds. I've been feeding them lots of sunflower seeds, which they seem to be especially grateful for just now.

Our good neighbors invited us for dinner last night. It is a relatively short walk—something like two or three city blocks. During the afternoon, I attempted to mash down a path by walking over there with my snowshoes. It still was not easy walking, but here is Kathie in the pretty snow as we make our way over there.

The neighbors have a metal roof on their home, and the snow was starting to slide off in big sheets, so I had to get a picture of that. We were sure not to slam the door when we entered.

Here is one more look at the lake across our back deck. These pictures always give us a feeling for the amount of snowfall based on the depth of the stacking of snow on the railing.