a walk in the woods

Fall is perfection to me.  My senses come alive, not burdened by the mud of spring, the mugginess of summer or the cold of winter.  The smell of crackling leaves, crisp air, grass, pumpkin, and wood smoke invade my nostrils.  The sight of brightly colored maple and birch leaves in their reds and yellows dazzle my eyes.  The sound of geese honking, crows cawing, leaves crackling, chainsaws buzzing in the distance is a great comfort to me.  

I relish all that fall is and look forward to it all year long.  

Sweaters and down vests, football season, the excitement of hunting and the newness of the school year.  Pumpkin beverages and desserts accompany delicious soups, stews and hot dishes (as casseroles are called in Minnesota).

Even though I love parts of all the seasons in Minnesota, fall is the season I love in its entirety. I embrace it, drink it in, long for it when it's gone.  To be in the woods after a summer banished to the lakes because of the stickiness and the pesky bugs is perfect. 

Spending frosty Saturday mornings hiking (I'm using that term loosely, it is a combination of walking, stumbling, meandering and trudging) through the woods with my fellow woods lover and dear friend is a combination of exercise, meditation, therapy, relaxation, escape and sheer joy.    

three steps

Today, I dropped my first born off at Kindergarten.  On the way there he said, “Mom, I don’t really need you to go in with me.”  After the chest pains subsided, I said, “well I have to talk to your teacher, how about I walk in behind you,” My eyes in the rearview mirror watching him contemplate this and then finally, “I guess that would be ok, but I don’t need you to come in.”  As I sat there trying to keep my composure I heard the words my dad told my mom at one point when my brother and I were not cooperating with her “life plans” for us…”That’s what happens when you raise independent children.”

So down the hallway of the elementary school that I had started Kindergarten in 23 years ago, I followed three steps behind as my baby walked a walk that I doubt I’ll ever forget his head held high with a confident stride.  I could not have been more proud but a part of me wanted to cry.  When we got to his class he did allow me a quick hug and kiss and then that was it, he was a Kindergartner.  Even though I know my work as a mother is so far from over, I somehow felt like I was giving my baby to the world for the first time.  New ideas and ways of thinking will push him to grow and challenge me as a parent.  It will be a great journey together. 

As I drove to work I thought about everything, every milestone, every tear spilt (by him and by me), I thought about the time I hid in the bathroom because he was driving me crazy, about the moments I’ll never forget as a mother…the first time his cry split through the air, the smell of his hair when he was a baby, the first time he walked, the time he told me he was a robot and he couldn’t shut off the naughty button because it was on his back and he could not reach it, the first time he rode his bike without training wheels, the look on his face when he saw his baby brother for the first time.  I thought of him at 2 years old on cross country skis and at 5 years old on water-skis. I thought of him at 3 months old sleeping on his daddy’s chest and I thought of him at 1 year old holding his daddy’s hand as they walked down the driveway at our new property (that is now our home).  I thought of him then walking down the hallway toward Kindergarten and then I saw all that was to come. 

He's my first born; he’s been with me since the start.  He’s seen the worst of my mistakes and the greatest of my triumphs as a mother.  He will survive and thrive because of me and in spite of me.  And like all things with the first born, we will figure it out together (sometimes holding hands and sometimes with him three steps ahead blazing the trail).    

the twilight of summer

One of my favorite views in Northern MN

I realized that I haven't posted in over a month....as summer winds down in northern Minnesota I do not spend much time in doors but rather soaking up the warmth before the cold traps us inside...

The Twilight of Summer

Trip to Twins Game

Getting local sweet corn ready to freeze for winter

to be a doctor in a small town...

My dad was 50 years old when he was diagnosed with cancer, a rare incurable cancer that would take his life five short months later.  The doctor that diagnosed him was the same man who attended local football games rushing onto the field every time one of our hometown heroes went down under the Friday night lights.  This doctor was the same man who according to my father saved my mother after giving birth to my older brother in 1981. 

When my father died, I was four months pregnant with my first child, just starting to swell and lose my shape.  Six months later, I had labored and pushed 20 hours when they told me to stop, my baby was in distress and that I would have an emergency cesarean section (which would turn out to be the first of many figurative and l am sure literal middle fingers we’d get as parents).  My dad’s doctor was the on-call surgeon that night and after comforting my terrified mother, he pulled a boy from my body who would have his Grandpa’s name….making me a mother, giving me hope and making the sky a bit bluer for our whole family.  I will never forget that, not just because I became a mother that night but because a man just doing his job had truly woven himself into the fabric of our family.  I am certain this is not something that is uncommon for him, a small town doctor who has treated generations, burying and birthing families along the way.  However, that in no way diminishes the role he’s played in our family. 

Five years later, my second child was born late on a Saturday night again via cesarean section.  Again, the man who even though he has ushered both of my sons screaming into this world will forever be referred to as my dad’s doctor arrived after a day of motorcycling and delivered another son into my husband’s waiting arms.  Before he left, he ducked under the curtain that separated me from the carnage of a c-section birth and said, “he’s a perfect baby boy,” to which I replied, “thank you for taking such good care of my family all of these years.”  He patted my head, gave a slight smile and said, “You’ve been a great family to take care.” To be the patient of a doctor in a small town.

National Blueberry Month

Happy National Blueberry Month!  Here's a couple photo from three summers ago of my then 2 year old son picking wild blueberries, a couple even made it into his bucket.


Check out this article on blueberries at home:
Blueberries for Home Landscapes- University of Minnesota Extension

fireworks

The 4^th of July, the worst storm remembered in the county followed up to a weeklong power outage in many places, our tiny town’s annual festival and my 10 year class reunion all occurred last week.  Fortunately our power came back on before my reunion; I was thrilled about the prospect of attending my reunion without a bath.  I fully intended to blame the thirty pounds of post high school weight gain on the power outage though.  Eighty mile per hour straight lined winds pushed countless trees over and our tiny town was scarred by trees that were uprooted and snapped off landing on cars, houses, and landmarks.  My friend who was visiting home from the Washington D.C. area shares her story of the storm in her blog, "What They Don’t Teach You in Deer River".  The storm and power outage cancelled the annual 4^th of July party we always attend but what didn’t change were the fireworks.

Fireworks are one the things I love most in life.  They invoke my inner child, making me squeal in delight as the beautiful flashes of light and color brighten the dark night sky.  I look forward to them each year and with great pleasure introduced my child to the excitement of fireworks.  The day reminded me of Christmas Eve, my five year old son asking every thirty minutes, “When are the fireworks?  Can we light some fireworks?” and me saying, “Not yet, after dark,” with growing strain in my voice each time he asked and finally giving in to some afternoon sparklers to try and satisfy his growing excitement.  At dusk, we began lighting off the $20 of small fireworks bought from the local stand, I laughed out loud as my son would race to my brother (the resident pyro for our small display) to hand him the next one to set up and light off and without even watching the last one blow off.  After that, we headed down to the dock to watch the “big ones” blow off around the lake.  It was a still night with mosquitoes nipping at us and all around the lake there were big beautiful booms of bright white and colored lights, we counted eight different displays and sat rotating our heads until the lake was foggy with gunpowder and yawn’s abounded.  I was much less animated without the party to ready me for the excitement but my heart was warmed by the tradition and my family around me.  Now that I am a mother, I realized I love fireworks because unlike many traditions they are not about food or gifts but rather a moment in time when we are all together watching the night sky, excited by the lights and noise and waiting with anticipation for the next big boom.    

things & stuff

Things are just things and stuff is just stuff.  How many times in our lives have we heard something like that said?  Typically followed by, it’s the memories that are made that matter.  I spent the most recent rainy day we had holed up in our basement sorting through eight bins of things & stuff that contained my childhood.

I had moved out of my childhood home the week after I married my husband, I was 20 years old and with me I took a bin full of pictures, a bag of books, a car full of clothes and a few pieces of furniture.  Otherwise my room remained largely untouched.  The shelves lining the walls packed with books and figurines.  The back of the door plastered with pictures cut from magazines of Heath Ledger and Brad Pitt.  The closet full of boxes with trinkets, old toys, CD’s and old formals hung collecting dust.

Seven years later, my mom finally decided to redecorate my room with walls painted with trees and the ceiling painted blue with fluffy white clouds and effectively graduate it from a childhood bedroom to a more mature counterpart with brown paint, antique furniture and a floral print on the wall.  One summer day, I arrived at my childhood home to use the beach (something I never plan to outgrow) and my mom was standing arms crossed on the porch with eights bins and a Brad Pitt poster sitting next to her and she firmly told me, “you can come in after you load this into your car.”  My mom had tried several times over the years to get me to take my stuff.  I finally complied; I did not really think I had a choice.  When I arrived home later that day and my husband began hauling bins to the basement, he exasperatedly said, “What are in these anyway?” He had brought a book of baseball cards and a bin of mementos that he’s mother had compiled when we married.   I peeked and I mean peeked (squinty forehead and a quick pinched glance) into the one of the bins.  Overwhelmed by what I saw I quickly said, “I’ll take care of these another day,” and to the basement they went.  My husband also asked what I planned to do with Brad.  It was a poster of Brad Pitt in all his Legends of the Fall glory; I don’t suppose I could hang it on the back of our bedroom door, do you?  It went in the trash but the rest of bins began collecting dust.

In northern Minnesota, you only ever head to the basement in the summer on rainy days and this last Saturday started just that way.  I sat cross legged on the concrete going through the bins.  Needless to say, I laughed, I cried and remembered a lot of things I thought I’d forgotten.  Some highlights included a picture of my husband from early in our relationship that is going to be placed on my nightstand, all of my diplomas, a hotel Bible stolen in my honor by a good friend, my Cabbage Patch doll (her name was Kelda Jo Beana, REALLY), a couple middle school journals that captured some pretty raw emotion and angst, and a copy of Antione de Saint Exupery’s The Little Prince that my mom gave my dad for Valentines’ Day in 1973 that I had at some point apparently confiscated from his bookshelf.  There were also a lot of stuffed animals and trinkets that must have meant something to me at some point but most I could not place.  In the end two bins worth was either trashed or donated and two are marked, “just in case we ever have a girl” with stuff that I think will be easy for me to part with in a few years once that is determined.  There are still four bins full of things & stuff in our basement, my childhood, memories of a time and place when I was someone else but ultimately guided me to who I am today.

I guess sometimes you can’t separate the things & stuff from the memories…

lions, tigers, bears and weasels. Oh, my!

I consider myself a north woods girl capable of all sorts of outdoorsy tasks (for example, cleaning and cooking a variety of wild game and kayaking through a creek choked with weeds because of a beaver dam).  However, last year on Mother's Day, which is the one day I am supposed to get to sleep in I get awoken at 5 am not by my 4 year old, not by my husband, not by my pregnancy bladder, not by my dog barking or the phone ringing but a critter running/fluttering across my head! 

I was four months pregnant with our second child and I moved the quickest I would probably move for some time as I screamed and jumped from my bed.  At the time I thought either a bat or a mouse had joined my husband and I in slumber but my husband confirmed that it was not a bat (my biggest phobia, more on "the night of the bats" later) because it clawed his back as it ran across him, how delightful.  I crossed the hallway to check that our son's room was critter free and shut the door to keep it that way, amazed he had slept through my screaming and thrashing about.  As I crossed the hallway with my blurry vision and no glasses, I saw a "HUGE mouse" scurry down the hallway.  My husband headed to the great room and turned on the lights and revealed a weasel scampering about our kitchen.  

Needless, to say a flurry of activity occurred to rid our house of the resident rodent, this included but is not limited to ripping the washer from its perch (releasing a large amount of dust), cutting a hole in a false wall , ripping up decking, pulling insulation from unfinished basement walls before the hunt was complete.  My husband was a champ and took good care of his jumpy pregnant wife during this early morning ordeal. 

Once the critter removal was complete, I asked my husband, "How the (insert expletive here) did a weasel get into our house?  This thing should be sealed up tighter than Fort Know [being that is was built just 2 years prior]."  Sheepishly, my husband confessed that a window in the basement has not been fully trimmed in allowing for a small gap between the window and the insulation that the weasel was able to chew its way into our home.  As my husband headed to the basement for some early morning trim work he smiled at me and said, "Happy Mother's Day, how many moms can say they got a weasel?" as he chuckled and walked away, leaving me wishing for a different gift.

I hope that is a once and a lifetime experience.  Anybody itching for a great country life after that story?

on a dirt road

I was born and raised in northern rural Minnesota.  It's where I have lived, laughed, lost and loved all my life.  This blog is the beginning of my adventure and desire to write more.  I have kept a journal on and off all my life and have countless unfinished stories on floppy disks, composition notebooks, CD disks (what do you call those anyway??), long dead hard drives, flash drives...you get the point, I have wanted to be "a writer" all my life. 

A little history about me and my decision to focus on what I call my life, "a great country life."  I graduated from a small high school and attended community college followed by university as a commuter student which is not uncommon in my "neck of the woods."  I have known the man I married since I was in grade school; we have have built a home, two boys and a life together over the past 9 years on a tract of land down a dirt road near the town we grew up in.  

Growing up I did not aspire to live in my hometown all my life, but as like many people, my life plan sort of veered off path around 18.  Even though my life has not gone according to plan, it has turned out to be better.  What makes the living a rural life great and how has it shaped who I am is just a slice of what I hope to explore in this blog.