Friday’s Flurries..

I guess it is a little like snow clouds.  I don[t think we will get much snow but we are seeing white specks  coming down.

I can hear the laugher from all my blog friends in the north. It isn’t major snowfall but it is our first one. The sun is shining right now while I am blogging and the powder snow keeps falling. I didn’t get my chair cushions in yet but I am betting we will warm up again next week.

I have already spent part of my morning moving plants around that were brought inside to protect them.  I had a large pot of begonias that I wanted in the window so things had to be shifted around.  The amaryllis shown here was last years plant that never bloomed.  I think I had posted views of it last winter as a foliage plant. I finally put it into the dark workshop space in the basement early spring.  While walking through  two weeks ago I did see it taking off with flower buds. It has had water and a lot of light now making it able to bloom. New blooms are soon to come.









My wife and I owned a cabin in Minnesota.  I purchased it in 1974 from a former resort owner.  He had sold out 18 cabins and the people buying were sharing the ownership of the land.  Next door was a neighbor woman, Marilyn Starr.  She and her friend owned the cabin.  She was twenty years older than us but she lived her life as if she was twenty years younger.  Her nieces and nephews were her children. She became a good friend, always incorporating us and our kids in their lives.  Marilyn liked to water and snow ski and did so up into  her later years.  She liked to build things and liked getting the neighbor guy involved with her building projects. We built her front deck together.  She leaned hard on me to help her build a large bay window on the front of her cabin also. She bought the large picture window first and we designed the bay window around it.  Two people could sit on the bay and watch out of the things on Lake Pokegama. Projects for the camp always include our family and they were great team players.  Marilyn had been a teacher and eventually became the Dean of Women at Bethel College.

When she retired out from the college she became an avid traveler and photographer. That was back when there was no digital formats on camera. Marilyn took Andy to see Star Wars because I still believe she wanted to see the movie. All of my memories of her were of her giving and sharing of life with people.  She was like the summer grandma for the boys. Her mother was grandma to all of us too but Marilyn died at the age of 89.  Her last years were ones of silence for her but she lived a great life. Our oldest son was able to go to the funeral in Cambridge, Mn.  Andy got to see all the grown up nieces and nephews and all of the kids from out past. We have fond memories of her at our oldest son’s wedding in Chicago.  We had lost contact with her the last 15 years or so as we sold our cabin.

Thank you for stopping by today.