Autumn is here

No sever frost yet but we needed more blankets to stay warm last night. This morning the temp at 6 was about 40, too cold for me. I will soon need to turn on the under floor heat.

The trees have really started to change with the maples turning a beautiful red. We difinitely have four seasons.

The Women's History Education Committee met last night. I hope they felt it was productive. I had copied every fifth year of school census records from the stored records in the basement of the courthouse for genealogy purposed prior to the 2002 flood. This was not much of a help as they did not list teachers, which what they need, the women educators. We are now waiting for the Minnesota Historical Society to send back their portion of the agreement so we can have the records brought over to the museum. I will need to start moving things to make room for the several boxes of info. It may even be smart to place them in a file cabinet instead.
Yesterday, we had two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints come in and help me move some things in a wardrobe. We are now ready to take the wardrobe apart so we can make room for more items. I need to order shelving but haven't received the quote yet. We always have so many things to think of.

Today I am going to start hot tub and pool therapy for my tkr. Hopefully this will give me the range of motion I need and remove some of the stiffness. Hope it is as helpful as it appears to be.

Saturday, always a day of work!

I would love to sleep until 10 just one Saturday. I always wake up sometime during the night and finally at about 6:30 or 7 that built in alarm attacks my subconscious and destroys any additional sleep time.

I think the ultra-sound that I started in pt this last week finally did some good. I am able to finally ride my bike again, well not terrifically but after a couple of rounds, it goes quite well. I purchased a book on Amazon about TKR. Lots of very good information. I think it has given me some new hope. I hope that I can control the varicose vein problems without surgery and get the knee pain under control.

I watched the movie Hotel Rwanda this afternoon. Why were we so hesitant to go in there when we first heard of the genocide that was taking place? Over a million people lost their lives and who knows how many children were orphaned. Where was the UN and all of us who should have stepped to the plate to stop this? I know the US can't be every where but the UN needs to stand up to situations like this and stop it, and we are part of the UN.

We are starting to get some fall like weather. Yesterday felt quite cold, today wasn't bad but next week we will probably get frost. Most everyone in the area has their wheat and canola off. Ardmore has spent the past two days chisel plowing. He has covered the wheat field at home and the canola field north of Badger. He is on his second trip on the canola field. Hopefully he won't have to go over it again.

I spent the evening listening to Woman's Conference this evening. It was so good. Elder Uchtdorf gave a wonderful encouraging talk about how we as women should look at who we are. I called Michelle and encouraged her to go this evening. She is so fortunate;she is only about 2 minutes from her chapel and can walk, and it is a stake center.

I better close, we forgot to clean the church this week so I will have to go in with Ardmore to get it done before church starts.

Meetings and thiings to do

Our museum assistant and I attended a Minnesota's Historic Northwest consortium meeting today. We had a very good representation with about 13 people in attendance. Our organization was established through the efforts of one woman whose vision was to see the Historical Societies and Museums in Northwest Minnesota work together to establish a learning enviroment and promote the history of our area. This past year has really seen us do this, as we designed an exhibit as well as a book in celebration of Minnesota's sesquicentennial celebration. The book and exhibit contain 150 photos that show and tell the important aspects of NW MN. It was a long day that starte at 7:15 and ended at 5.

I drove and now I have a very sore swollen knee, nothing new. I iced it and headed for bed.

I had ordered a book shelf from Office Depot to put on my north wall. I plan to put mostly clothing on it but it will also hold books and several odds and ends that clutter my bedroom. We started to put it together this evening, but I got to tired to finish so we will do that tomorrow.

Fawns in the Field

Today, I went to visit a nearby friend. During our visit she reported that her husband had seen three fawns by the river behind their home. It reminded me of Friday evening when Ardmore and took the pickup out to the semi at about 9:30 pm. As we droved across the field the deer appeared one after another, the doe with her three fawns, a doe with no fawns, and another doe with two fawns. Ardmore told me they had must have bedded down in the wheat field as there were several areas where they had flattened the grain.

This is one of the advantages of living in our area, seeing deer and fawns up close and personal. These same deer often come into our yard and graze. We don't have a dog to drive them away, thank goodness, so they feel comfortable in our yard. I have woke up at night to see them grazing no farther than 10 feet from our bedroom window.

Watching the relationships between the mother and her fawns is sometimes enlightening. She would push them out of the way, if there was some grain to be found on the ground where we were loading the bins. It is like she was saying, you eat after I am full and not until then. Watching the fawns frolick in the yard has always been fun to watch. They jump and romp and push at each other.

Now that the wheat field is havested they will go into the soybeans, and then the CRP until we get snow, at which time they head to the forst and the protection from the cold and wind.

Our new High Councilman and his wife and two little children came to our branch today. Both gave great talks about taking care of the lost members.

I have found that I am having so much trouble getting Minnesota Public Radio on the radio, I have started to listen online more often. The internet is such a powerful tool. Today, our Family History leaders entered me into the new family search website as a consultant. I am excited about this. I never thought about it until an LDS couple came to the museum this past week and encouraged me to ask about being consultant. I have a waiting period before I can log on and become acquainted with the program. New things to learn again!

James put more photos on his Facebook website. In order to see them I had to sign up for Facebook, which I did. Some are very interesting. I am waiting to see his photos of harvest.

Michelle emailed me some photos of Damen with his parents and with grandma Michelle. I am going to post the one of Damen with Breanne and Josh right here.

The Wheat is Off!

We finished the wheat harvest last evening. It was so exhausting yesterday. Every time I had a truck unloaded, I headed for the field to find another truck loaded or Ardmore fast approaching with a loaded combine. Climbing up and down out of the truck and the tractor gave my knee and hip lots of exercise. Boy was I sore at the end of the day. I was happy to see Ardmore decide to take out the semi the last load. The only grain left now is the soybeans and that probably won't happened for at least two weeks. This will give Ardmore time to chisel plow the fields we are done with. The wheat ran fairly well, something over 60 b/acre.

I rode my bike for 15 minutes and iced the knee for another 15 minutes and headed for the shower and bed. The bed felt like heaven and I was sleeping in no time.

Harvest Continues

Yesterday turned out to be very nice, 80 and sunny. Ardmore took off the last of the canola and heading north to the home farm to continue with the wheat. Took a couple of hours to finally get rolling as we had to change combine headers. He had considered swathing but it was so nice he decided to just go with the straight header. Hurrah! I would have been the one on the swather and as much as I can entertain myself with my Ipod, hours and hours of going up and down on the swather gets monotonous, plus it is so much easier when we straight head the wheat. I think the wheat is running about 60 bushels to the acre this year. We took off 600 bushels in about 3 hours yesterday.

My Knee
Could I say I am less than happy with the tkr? Yes. It is painful. I think the biggest problem is that I have varicose veins behind my knee and they are giving me so much pain my range of motion is being limited. I wonder now if I would have done this replacement if I would have known this would have been a complication. Well, I guess I will have to see it to the end, whenever that will be, and see what the outcome is at six month, one year, etc. I hear it does get better. I sure hope so.

On September 8, we celebrated 46 years of marriage. Wow, 46 years with the same person seems like an awful long time! Yup, it is. Would I do things differently, perhaps and then perhaps not. I guess the old cliche "life is what you make it" rings true in a 46 year marriage.

What have I learned being married to someone for 46 years?

• You can't change them and they can't change you.
• Be independent.
• Always look for the good in any given situation.
• Have a life of your own and allow them the same.
• Take vacations alone periodically.
• Always remember the things you have in common and don't focus on the things you don't have in common, after all, you don't look alike, do you?
• Enjoy each day for what it brings.
• Last but not least, tell each other you love each other and show it

Yup, it had to rain..

Woke up to thunder and some wild lightening at 6:20. Yup, it rained again. Not much and I hope not south but I don't know if it is done yet. Crazy but there was just one big storm along the border and of course it had to stop here!

12 Things you should know about living in NW Minnesota

1. It can rain any time during the summer and usually does.
2. It is usually very green and beautiful from the middle of May to the middle of September,then the leaves change and it is fall beautiful.
3. Summer often is very hot and muggy.
4. There are no lakes except Lake of the Woods and a couple of resorvors where we live in NW MN.
5. Contrary to some reports, we do have all four seasons.
6. The first snow that stays can arrive around Halloween.
7. The Northern Lights here are beautiful and can be in color!
8. Winters are COLD. To prove this my husband received a hat from his company when he worked on the iron range in 1995 that says, "I survived 60 below."
9. Snow can appear any time of the year, I remember snow flakes one Fourth of July when I was in high school.
10. Minnesota is a top grain producer and grass producer, including blue grass.
11. Roseau Co. is the home of Polaris Industry and Marvin Windows and Doors.
12. Roseau Co. suffers from flooding periodically due to heavy rain falls.

Fall is here

Fall has definitely arrived in NW Minnesota. The sand hill cranes have arrived and one can park by a field where several are feeding on harvest scraps and listen to their melodic sounds. I haven't seen any large groups of geese flying yet but when I took James to the plane and stopped at the factory mall seven geese flew right through the mall no higher than the buildings. It was quite neat to see.

Yesterday and today we took off canola. Ardmore figures we lost about 10-15% due to the rain and wind we have had these past few weeks. He must have about 130,000 pounds now and only has 5 rounds left on the field. I hauled one load home and unloaded it then took the truck out the field about 8 pm so it would be there for him to work on tomorow. I told him I was swath some wheat if he wanted that done tomorrow. I think I will be home for the next two days and I sure hope the wheat gets off too. We have about 60 acres of wheat to take off yet. We are hoping to get this off dry. Tomorrow and Friday are suppose to be in the 70s so we should get most of the grain and canola taken off.

It is getting to be a trial to see the prices drop like they have. Canola is doing from 25 cents a pound to 16 cents. Wheat has gone from $16 to $7 something. I hope November pricing is better.

Things have changed so much since I went to school. A friend from work has a daughter who turned 14 yesterday. She went to the school and decorated the outside of her locker and the walls near the locker. Then she ordered flowers for her to pick up at the office. Pretty cool. If we would have done something like that when I was in school it wouldn't have been allowed. We have gotten to the point where the child is of value.

Oh, I've over done and am falling asleep at the computer...ZZZZ

Busy Day

What was suppose to be a beautiful day, started cloudy, but by noon the sun was out and by 2:30 it was warm.

I started the day with about 45 minutes working out a Lake Therapy. When I got to work, my day moved quickly from one thing to another. My museum assitant and I check out where we could put some new shelves in the storage room and how we would redign the storage area to make room for items in the semi trailer. A board member and her husband had cleared out the wardrobes last week and now they need to be dismantled to make room for the changes we plan. I then sat about figuring out the mid-month bank deposit, assigned some research, answered email and snail mail, spoke with several people about some projects we need to have done and some county artifacts that we are interested in receiving. Had lunch with friends, came back and finished the deposit, went to the bank and then had a doctor appointment.

When I returned from the doctor appointment, Ardmore called me to come home and drive the truck out to the field. First I had to email the newspaper articles to a couple of papers, stop at the grocery store, and the hardware store.

After taking the truck to the field, I decided it was so nice out I would go for a walk while he was combining. That was very restful and enjoyable. I listened to Blood, Sweat and Tears on the Ipod came back and we decided the canola may be too wet to combine and needed to have the moisture checked first. I ran the canola over to the neighbors and checked it while Ardmore worked on checking grain bin fans. It was 8:30 by the time we got in and I still needed to fix something to eat and ride the stationary bike, fold a load of laundry and put another load in the washer. Do my nails for work tomorrow. Now it is bedtime... Thank goodness!

Sunday, a Day of Rest

Woke up to rain again... It misted all the way to church. This week should see a change, at least that is what accuweather says. We should see warm weather and no rain for the next week, a miracle in the waiting.

Ardmore leaves for church at about 7:15; I leave the house at 9:15, I need more sleep. Good talks today, missionaries both gave excellent talks encouraging to not be afraid to speak about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why do we have knee fright?

Exercising takes me about 1 hour and a half every morning. Then comes the icing of the knee. Today was tough, my knee bothered me almost all day. I have iced it two times. Perhaps that isn't enough but there are other things to do in life, like enjoy the two hour nap I took this afternoon. MMMM, that felt so good.

Tomorrow I have pt (more pain and torture). I also have a doctor appointment in the afternoon. I hope he can help me with the pain behind my knee that has been tormenting me. I think the pain now is worse than the pain I had before I had knee replacement. Plus, the stiffness is real torture. Hopefully, I can get some answers. My orthopedic specialist doesn't deal with these problems, only bones.

It is a relief to see the price of oil drop to about $100 a barrel. We decided it was time to order gas. The cost -$1660 for 500 gallons for farm gas on Thursday. It is utterly amazing that there can be such a fluctuation. Last year we paid $2.27 a gallon, this year it is $3.38, about 1/3 more, plus the price of grain is going down. I bet the grain prices won't recover to last fall and springs prices anytime soon. We also have the added expense of having to dry our grain and purchase equipment to help do that. I am not anxious to see what the electric bill will run over the next three months. Right now we have three 5 horse motors and a 1.5 horse motor running, when we add the drying heaters tomorrow, that will put it at two more motors running. OUCH! Farming is very expensive and a gamble.

Ardmore switched headers on the combine late this afternoon. He has decided to take off the canola before we tackle the rest of the wheat. I hope the canola will go on Tuesday, it will take at least two days to get it off. This will mean that I have to leave work early again. Well, our crop has to come first.

Talked to Michelle, Brian and James either yesterday or today. Life is good.

Thought for the day:

"Therefore I say unto you. What things soever ye desire, when ye pray,

believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

Mark 11:24

Why does it continue to rain?

Here we are, three days from the last rain and it rained again. Will we ever get our crop off? We have so much wet grain in the bin now and some of it at a moisture level of 19% and it continues to rain. Just when the grain moisture starts to drop so we can combine, it starts to rain again. Ardmore purchased two electric heaters to place on the grains bins. I think we will need one more but we are trying to be hopeful.

He has decided to take the header off of the combine and put the other header on so he can take off the canola. The wheat has too high of a moisture lever and he is hopeful that it will drop while he is taking off the canola. He needs at least two days of warm weather to see the canola dry enough to take off. We are praying it will come off this next week, as the weather report looks promising.

Monday is our grandson Bryce's birthday. I wanted to email him but we do not have his new Coast Guard email address. (Hey Bryce, if you read this write to granny!) I will have to mail his card to his mother so he can pick it when he returns from his trip to sea. I hope he has a good camera and takes lots of photos so we can see them. I am putting a photo of Bryce (left) and James on the blog for any young women who check out my blog can see the hunks!

The Best of a Saturday

So, Saturday is here. WooHoo!

The Ten Best things about Saturday

1. Sleeping in
2. Calling Family
3. Watching your favorite movie
4. Eating out
5. Lunch with friends
6. Spending time reading a favorite book
7. Gardening
8. Going to Winnipeg
9. Baking
10. Sitting on the deck and enjoying a beautiful day.

Back to work

This week I am going to try to work a full week. I have several appointments today including one with my orthopedic specialist. Dr. Schall told me I was doing so well I didn't have to come in for about 6 months. I am scheduled for January 13, four months away, I change it if I need to. I appreciate this doctor, when I was discouraged a couple of weeks ago, he called me. He is a very caring person.

This has not been easy. The knee is much more painful than the hip, but I think the recovery is quicker. I am already walking over a mile a day and now I can ride our stationary bike. My knee has a click which I was told me was common. I had read it was possible to have some clicking, I would have been very discouraged if I had not read up on this. Research has been a great help, often it has taken hours to discover what I want to understand about the hip and knee replacement issues. There are many ups and downs but the ups far outweigh the downs. Knee replacement is definitely not my own knee, it is exactly what is put in, an artificial knee, but I can look forward to many years of walking and enjoying life more now. I did have pain on the inner area of my knee but Brian had been through much massage therapy and did some on me so now I know how to take care of the pain and it has really helped. I find the hardest thing to handle is the stiffness. It takes lots of exercise daily. I think the stationary bike will benefit me the most.

The house is so quiet now that the guys are gone, I am happy to back at work. Ardmore tried to combine this afternoon but the wheat was still 19.5% moisture so he quit. I hope we don’t have any rain so he can try again tomorrow, it should go then. I will be unloading grain if it does.

Are you ready to hang up a flag on Sept 11? If not give this some thought. I believe it is one of the best ways to show support for our young service men and women.
How about that McCain/Palin ticket? I think this ticket will give Obama and Biden a run for their money. For the first time, McCain was ahead of Obama this year. I say let the race begin and may the republicans win.

Thought for the day

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive,
nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
Charles Darwin

Charleen

Harvest with the family

With our two younger men home, one would think the wheat would be all off, right? Wrong! Dad does not like to combine in the dark and would quit even if there was a hot wind and the wheat was dry as popcorn. Needless to say Brian, James and Mom were not happy. Brian had work starting on Tuesday. On Sunday evening, about 9 pm, Brian and I were on our way to Winnipeg where we spent the night so he could catch a plane to LA. Ardmore and James continued to combine until dark. After dropping Brian off at the awful hour of 5, I went back to the motel to sleep and when I awoke it was raining. Discouraged because no stores were open, I headed back home immediately. When I arrived, the sun was shining and James and Ardmore were combining. That was the last day we hit the fields, it rained great drops of rain that night, 1.25 inches. It put an instant stall on the harvest. We did have about 115 acres off and have about another 95 of wheat to go. The canola is laying and probably shelling out. At least the wheat isn't laying, it is still standing. I hope we have enough warm weather for the soybeans to ripen.

I did get a couple of good photos of the men on the combine and will place one here one.

James heads back to LA tomorrow and then we are left to pray for better, warmer weather so we can get the rest of the crop off.

As for my knee and hip, it does seem to be getting better each day. I have done some heat, massaging, and icing to keep the hip from spasming again. I had pt this afternoon. I need to work on getting my knee to reach its maximum movement and that is very hard. Today I had a different pt and she gave me some new exercises. one for the hip and some for the knee. I will be trying them out tonight.

So what have we eaten when the guys were home? Lots of blueberries. This has been the year for good blueberries and I have purchased more than our share. We had a blueberry pie and an apple pie. I still can't top the Twin's apple pie so don't even try, I just order one instead. We had cheese burgers, Brian's fabulous spinach scrambled eggs, lots of fresh fruit mixes, lemon chicken, and of course, potato salad. No, I didn't bake any cookies this time, bought some instead. I figured if I baked, I would eat more than anyone else. Its a good thing it is coming to a halt, I have gained three pounds and need to take it off pronto!

Tomorrow will bring a state of quiet to our home and the lack of family will haunt the house.

Charleen