Friday, March 22, 2024

Tears & Laughter

A strange title for a blog post, an even stranger title for a book. No, I am not writing a book. I sometimes wish I had the skill and confidence to write one, but that day will never come. Instead, I read. 

The book I am currently reading is the title of this post, Tears & Laughter by Gene Hill. One of the best outdoor writers of all time. He had the ability to write in such a way, it takes the reader back into the forests and marshes of their youth, reminiscing about past hunts, lifelong friends and of course dogs. Even if you are not an outdoor enthusiast, I think you would appreciate his writing. 

But it is not his writing that inspired me to write this post. It is the book itself. 

I have written before about how we search for Gene Hill books whenever we are in antique stores. We have found a couple, but when Barb found a complete set on an on-line auction, I just had to have them. We won them and they are now displayed proudly on the bookcase in our bedroom. 

I pulled down Tears & Laughter this week and started reading it. The first thing I noticed when I opened the book was this. 

A handwritten note from Bill to Paul dated Dec. 1985. That got me to wondering; who was Bill? Who was Paul? They were obviously hunting buddies but from where? Below that were more handwritten notes I assume Paul wrote, noting the dates he had read the book. I assume he read it once when he got it, then picked it up again in 2004, 2010 and 2021. A few pages later, it was even signed my Gene himself!

I was on the second chapter of the book when some newspaper and magazine clippings fell out of the back. Intrigued, I unfolded them and looked them over. The only date I could find on any of them were from 1981 which happens to be the same year the book was published. The article on the far left was about writing contest winner; this one featuring "A Listening Walk" by Gene Hill. The middle article was torn from a magazine. "I Never Met a Dog I Didn't Like" by Bill Tarrant. A quick search of Bill showed that he wrote for Field & Stream magazine in the 70's and 80's. I got a kick out of the cigarette ad on the back of one of the pages. The last clipping was out of an old Fins and Feathers magazine and showed several ads for hunting dogs. 

Paul, I assume put these in the back of this book decades ago. Any hunting dog he may have purchased has long ago passed away. But what kind of bond did those two have? What memories did they make? What marshes and fields did they walk? 

As all this transpired, I was sitting on our bed on a snowy afternoon with Dakota lying beside me. I folded those pieces back up and put them back where they belonged, got up, put on a coat and took Dakota for a walk in the woods. 

Although it was still cold and snowing, she was having a blast. Nothing makes her happier than a walk in the woods looking for rabbits. She runs from brush pile to brush pile sticking her nose in there looking for a wascally wabbit. Some she would pass by and give a cursory sniff, while others she would dance around sticking her whole head in. 

When she does find one, she harmlessly chases it for a few yards before the rabbit heads off to another brush pile somewhere further into the forest. She's a good dog. Had a rough beginning, but now is living her best life.

No rabbits were to be found this day, but she was still happy. Ears up, eyes alive and tail tagging. She'll be limping tomorrow, but it is worth it. As for the book, I will finish reading it, start my own "read" log and put it back on the shelf. 

Gene passed away in 1997, I am guessing Bill and Paul are probably gone as well. Someday, if all goes as planned, Forrest will read this book after I am long gone, see my handwritten notes and the dates I read the book, think back at past hunting trips we've had together, the dogs that he had and perhaps, take whatever dog he has at that time for a walk in the woods. 

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Here we go Again!

Here we go again, just when we thought we were going to take it easy for a few weeks we come up with another project. Just a little project, nothing too big or time consuming. Just a 24x48 garage to put our junk in. 

To think, just a few years ago, all our worldly possessions fit in a 40' 5th wheel. Now we have a house garage and shed that seem to be bursting at the seams. It's really Kevin's fault. We had been thinking about a garage in a few years and I mentioned it to him. He then said he was remodeling a garage that required different trusses and we could have the old ones. That is how this mess started. So, Barb and I went over there, loaded up the old trusses, brought them home and have them stacked and waiting for us to start building. 

We won't get it done by the time we leave for Alaska, but I do hope to get the dirt work done. We started by scraping all the topsoil off and setting it aside. 

Once that was done it was time to set grade and level out the site. But here's the deal, there is not much level on our property. This spot requires 2' of fill in one corner, 1' in two other corners and nothing in the 4th corner. Rather than pay for all that fill, I went down to the pond and scraped a few loads of loose dirt around the edge and loaded into Neighbor Jim's dump trailer.

Once I got all that I could take from that area it was off to the local quarry for road base gravel. 4 loads so far and it looks like I will need about 6 more. Once it is all leveled out, we will let the rain and weather compact it over the summer and carry on with this project in the fall.

Several of you commented on the map program we used to document our travels. The program we use is Travellerspoint. We looked at several, but this is the one we settled on. Travellerspoint gives you a variety of options for mapping your route. We've tried several and prefer the Curved Line.

This screenshot shows the "Drive" and Straight Line" options.

The website also has other features including a Blog feature, but we have never tried them.  Speaking of blogs, Blogger has been giving me trouble lately. Not as much as it has given other people, but I spent an hour or so putting a couple dozen blogs in the "Our Favorite Blogs" section. This is how we keep track of the blogs we read and it tells us when one of them posts a new post. They were all there initially, then some, randomly, started disappearing. Not enough that you would notice but eventually I would say to myself "XXX has not posted for a while". I would go to their blog and sure enough, they had been posting but had disappeared from our sidebar. Very frustrating!

We, along with Kevin and Cheryl, went over to Dan and Bonnie's for salmon supper one evening. It turned into quite the crazy night. There may or may not have been a video taken of Kevin near the end of the night showing him shirtless, flexing his muscles. I was traumatized seeing it in person and since many of you are probably eating breakfast as you read this, I will save you from having to view said video.

We did play a couple of dice games. I don't know if they do this in other states, but in Wisconsin almost every bar has something called Shake-a-day where everyone puts in a dollar and with 6 dice you have 3 shakes to get 6 of a kind. If you do, you get 1/2 the pot. If no one gets it, the pot carries on until eventually someone gets it another day. You can only play one time a day. 

We also played Sh#tbox which is what you see in the picture below. It is really called Shut the Box, it seems to have taken on this new name. Everyone putting in a dollar. The winner with the lowest total wins the pot. Here are the rules if you are unfamiliar with it. Of course we do not use real money for either of these games, that would be illegal!  

Last Sunday, we spent the day over at Kevin's helping him cut shiplap boards out of rough cut for their bunkhouse. I cut the boards to length, Kevin dado'ed the shiplap groove into each side of the boards, finally, Barb and Cheryl sanded them. We headed over there today (Sunday) again to continue to help them get the bunkhouse ready for renting this summer. 
Let's see, what else have we been doing? Oh! we made three Bluebird houses! We have plenty of scrap wood around the garage so we thought we would put it to good use. 
We've had a few checking them out, but so far, no one has taken up residence. 

We went for a couple of walks looking for sheds. The elk and deer have started dropping their antlers. You see a lot of interesting things out in the forest. I did find this pile of chocolate covered peanuts in the middle of the woods.
They were a little fibrous and earthy, but otherwise they tasted okay. We knew we were in the right area but have yet to find anything. There are bearing trees scattered throughout the forest. The geological service uses them instead of permanent markers. We also found numerous elk rubs like the one on the right below. 
Lastly, the weather has finally warmed up enough for us to enjoy the gazebo. We put the TV back out there, restocked the bar and hung two signs we picked up on our travels. Life, is good!


Saturday, March 9, 2024

Blog-iversary

 I am actually a month late, but it is official, our blog is 10 years old! 

But today, is the 10-year anniversary of the day Barb and I started our great RV adventure leaving Spring Valley, Wisconsin for parts unknown. 

Not only that, but last week is also 10 years since Barb retired.

Some of you have followed our blog from Day 1 and what a journey it has been!  86,769 miles, 47 states, 9 provinces and of course Mexico. So, where have we been in 10 years? Let me show you.....

You'll notice a couple of things; even before we bought and built here, the Black Hills of South Dakota was one of our favorite places. As was The Farm in North Dakota and of course Pasha north of Thunder Bay Ontario. We wintered many years and have great memories of Quartzsite Arizona only missing that area in '21 &'22. Both the kids lived in Salt Lake until '17 when one moved to Pennsylvania and the other to Oregon. Some of the years you can see where the year ended or started, like 2017 where the trail ends in Fort Stockton, TX and picks up again there in the 2018 map.

2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
So, what will the next 10 years bring? Let's start with this....our big travel adventure for this summer. I will let the map tell the story.....
Summer of '24
A three-month adventure to Alaska! Barb has the route all planned out to hit some new places, a trip to Fairbanks to see Barb's cousin as well as hitting some of our favorite fishing spots, including a month in the Homer/Soldotna area! 

We are beyond excited for this adventure. Here is to 10 more years of good health, happiness and great adventures!

Monday, March 4, 2024

Friends

Friends. Where do you meet friends? How do you meet friends?

How did we become blessed with so many good friends? Since we do not get out to the east coast very often, we planned our route to trying to visit as many of our friends as possible. I did a mental recap on how we met most of the friends we visited on this trip. The answer? Traveling. Over 1/2 of the people we stopped and saw on this adventure were people we met while on the road. We met Mike and Liz in Alaska, Shawn and Kim in Arizona, Dan and Mary in Ontario finally Guy and Sue who we also met in Arizona. Combine that with the 4 other couples we met on the road that we hoped to see but it did not work out and it obvious we have met a lot of good people on our travels. 

What made me think of this? Well, last week I mentioned a package that was waiting for us when we returned home. This package was sent to us by another friend we met on the road. But here's the kicker.... we have yet to meet her! Nancy is a fellow traveler and blogger. We have been following each other's adventures for....I actually don't know; I will just go with years. And over those years we have become friends, I would venture to say, good friends, who have never met. We have so many life experiences in common that we could not help to be friends. She is the definition of a Cowgirl. Born and raised on a ranch with a life immersed in adventure, cattle, horses and farming. 

So, when she emailed asking for our address, saying she wanted to send us something, we were excited and intrigued. She said that it was something she had that no longer fit into her house decor and she immediately thought of us! Unfortunately, we would be leaving within a few days and would not be home to receive it. So, we gave her our neighbors address to mail it to and would have to wait until we got home to see what she had that made her think of us. 

Then it was almost the package that wasn't when it totally disappeared from her house. She realized that when she was getting rid of some antique clothing, the box was accidently taken by the person who picked up the clothing! She was able to get it back and get it shipped off to us. 

When we got home it was waiting on our counter where Neighbor Jim had put it. We were too excited to take a picture of the box, we just tore into it. Was it going to be something cool that we were going to cherish, or something cheesy that was destined for the 2nd hand store? Barb tore into the box like a Tasmanian Devil. Cardboard and packing flying everywhere. 

The first thing she pulled out was this gorgeous quilt! A quilt I had known well as she had posted in her blog while she was making it. I had posted how much I liked this quilt and low and behold, here it is!

Being a non-quilter I do not realize the work that goes into making a quilt. I know it is a labor of love and take hours and hours of work. The number of pieces and detail in this thing is incredible! Just look at this one little corner. Each of those different colors and sections had to be individually cut out and sewn together. And did you notice the stitching? Bear paws!

But wait, there is more! Digging further into the box, Barb pulls out this beautiful fox pelt! This thing is huge. Just look at the size of it compared to the quilt. Nancy has seen pictures of the inside of our house and knew that it would fit in perfectly. We have a corner by the entry dedicated to furs and trapping. It fits in perfectly! It is on the left side of the door above the coyote. 

Nancy even included a letter and story of how each of these items came about. Here is a bit of what she wrote:
Then there is the story the quilt tells......
She obviously knows us very well. All this from a woman we have not even met! We are truly blessed. 

We also celebrated Barb's birthday this week. A milestone birthday, she is officially on Medicare! Have you ever tried to buy a present for the woman who has everything? Well, it's not easy. All winter I was taking note of things she said she wanted or looked at longingly before putting it back on the store rack. Do you think I could remember a single one of them when it came time to buy her a birthday gift? Nope.

Instead, I took her to Rapid and we went shopping. She has the hardest time spending money on herself, so I drug her to her (okay my) favorite store and made her pick something out. Cabela's always has the perfect gifts, right? While she walked around the store, I went and looked at the animal display. Dreaming that I too might one day, harvest one of these beasts. When I found her again, she was looking at hiking socks. She put them back saying "I am not spending that much on socks". After some prodding, she picked out a pair and away we went to the register. 
Then we were off to her next favorite store (okay, mine again) Scheels where she picked out a new Yeti mug for herself. Do I treat my woman right or what?!?!
Next up was Sam's Club where we picked out these Cowboy Cut Ribeyes and a dessert.
For supper on her birthday we got together with Dan and Bonnie, going to Jalapeno Grill in Hot Springs. Mexican food. 😬 But, Barbie loves it so so do I.
The critters were happy to have us home too. We were greeted by turkey, deer and even a huge herd of elk!


'
I know some of you might find it hard to believe, but we have not started any new projects since being home. The only work we have done is getting the house in order, installed a whole house water filtration system and spent one day out in the woods clearing brush. We have three large piles ready to burn next time we get 3" of snow or more. Barb also started a sourdough bread starter. She is on day 5, it is pretty slow going as our house rarely gets above 65 so it is definitely struggling.
Dakota and Zoey had an exhausting week reacquainting themselves with all the smells around the yard. Zoey was exhausted at the end of the day!
By the way, check out Nancy's blog for today (3/4) to see the incredible quilt she finished today!

Since everyone like teasers so much, here is another one for next week where I will reveal our summer plans. Another great North American Road trip!