Today’s guest blog is by tim

dale is a way and the blog will play

this weekend we will do an excercise in improv blogging.
the art of improv is cool but there are a couple of rules to have success.

never mind what you had in mind if the person before you throws a different direction at you you have to accept it totally and go from there.

i will put a final line on it at 12:01am and you can catch it on the next morning or if ben is up in the middle of the night he can read it then.

so heres a test of the group poem:

i write: i am a blogger and i’m ok
anna writes: he blog all night and i blog all day
clyde writes: his poodles named fido because its french
steve writes: his ex wife is an awful evil wench

the rest goes off to lord knows where…..
its ok to change the tempo and go with something new
one fish two fish red fish blue fish
or the midnight ride of paul rever are ok to throw in…
take a line or a stanza and run with it.

if while you are posting the poem gets responded to by someone else it could get confusing but i think we can follow multiple directions with this group. follow one or the other ort both

cmon in the water is fine

for real this time:

i’m a baboon blogger and i’m ok
i blog all night and blog all day….

next line?

Today’s guest blog comes from Jim.

As a seed saver I am dedicated to collecting, maintaining, and passing on seeds of vegetables and other plants that are rare and in danger of being lost. In the past, many families knew how to save and pass on seeds that they valued from one generation to another. This tradition is dying out. The Seed Savers Exchange (www.seedsaversexchange.org ) and other groups are making an effort to get the public more involved in seed saving. Saving the stories that are connected to seeds is considered by many seed savers to be as important as the seeds themselves.

I asked my Uncle Jake if he had any seeds that came from my Grandfather. He did have a jar of very old seed for a flat Dutch green bean that my Grandparents would slice up and make into a homemade product similar to sauerkraut. Unfortunately this seed was too old and wouldn’t germinate. Then I learned that my Uncle was willing to share some seed he had saved for many years. I am now growing and saving seed from a tomato and a bean that my Uncle got from his German neighbor. The tomato has fairly large, sweet, pink colored fruit that resembles some other tomatoes that originated in Germany. I call this tomato, Jake’s, in honor of my Uncle.

The bean is a very large white dry bean, which I call Large Navy. I like the bean because it came from my Uncle and because I haven’t seen another exactly like it. My cousin told me that this bean was used in cooking by my Uncle’s parents and I am looking forward using it myself. I gave my Uncle a copy of the Seed Saver’s Yearbook where my listing of the seeds I got from him is published. My cousin told me that his father would probably frame the Yearbook pages with those listings and hang them on the wall.

My Aunt Ida preserved a rose that came from my Grandmother. This is a large, very hardy, old fashion, pink rose. My Aunt told me that my Grandmother said the rose is an Austrian perfume rose. My Aunt also said that you couldn’t necessarily believe everything that my Grandmother had to say! I very much appreciate my Aunt’s sense of humor and somewhat sarcastic stories. She doesn’t hold back from speaking her mind and will say some things that might be a little offensive to some people and which I find to be very entertaining. She has some other stories I treasure about my Grandmother which are very funny and not entirely respectful.

Do you know any “heirloom” stories about your ancestors?

Today’s guest blog is by Beth-Ann.

I pride myself in my ability to explain things both complex and simple. After all I have successfully explained alpha thalassemia major in Hmong and can go on (and on) about the likely association of immunoreactive trypsinogen to spontaneous intestinal perforation in extremely premature infants.

Why then does my family not always understand what I say?

After college graduation my parents left me in charge of the younger kids when they went abroad. They also left my college-age sister as an assistant since I was working full-time. One night I explained that the following night’s dinner would be a family favorite-chicken pot pie. I prepared all the constituents as my mother always did. I reviewed the assembly with my sister. “Just put the chicken, the sauce, and the vegetables in this pan, and cover it with the crust,” I said with great patience to my sister who wasn’t exactly a domestic goddess. When I asked if she had any questions, her response left me speechless. With all sincerity she said, “Can I leave the vegetables in the can or do I have to take them out?”……I picked up dinner at McDonald’s rather than risk eating her preparation.

Fast forward many years to when my son was in first grade. Because of his bone disease and frequent fractures he didn’t often dress himself. There were, however several days when I had the flu and a high fever and since he could walk I would send him to his room with instructions to put on clean underwear and the pants and shirt I had put out for him.
On the 3rd day I looked up from my delirium and noticed that his leg looked much more crooked than I had remembered it. I had hope that the giant bend in his femur was just a fever-induced illusion. I arranged to meet his physical therapist when she came to school that day to see Scott. The three of us went to the bathroom to slip off the sweatpants and look at his leg. I was surprised to see that my son was wearing 3 pairs of underpants. His response has become a family classic for failure to follow directions-“You didn’t say to take them off before I put on the clean ones.”

When did the message not get through?

Today’s guest blog is by Anna.

Seeing this message written in the snow, carefully laid out by someone adept enough to leap to the right spot to start the next letter, you can tell this is a message sent with care. A message with a story; a story one might find an obvious start to, given that this missive is directly below the heart-shaped “M+S.” But that seems too trite. Frankly, I think the “M+S” is there as a clever bit of misdirection. Here is what I think led up to the note in the snow:

Tomorrow is the last one, better do it right. One final job for Leo, then I’m on to the next adventure. Small thing, should be an easy acquisition. Not my favorite, but the price is right and a body does have bills to pay. It is amazing what people are willing to shell out to have me do the dirty work of getting something; high pay for challenging procurements. I am just a well-paid expeditor and shipper, a liberator of information and doodads.

And monkeys. Why did this last one have to be a monkey? Monkeys are noisy, foul and they steal my fruit. Last time I had a gig with a monkey he sat on my fedora, left scat on the top of the piano and tried to have his way with my Chewbacca doll. I wish I weren’t so good with monkeys. Small monkey, Leo said, a marmoset. A marmoset with a penchant for ping pong, killer skills mixing a dry martini, and other “unnamed” abilities the client wants. Stick him in your pocket and you’re good to go, Leo says. With something that tiny and my big duster coat to hide it, it should be an easy move from the lab to the meet up. Good thing I’m not a gin drinker or it might be tempting to keep this one around, just for kicks.

Dad said I should have become a dentist. Mom was hoping for an MBA. Four years of cultural anthropology and another two at chef’s school and I’m stuck ferrying bar tending monkeys for cash.

Focus. Get the goods, write a note in the melting snow, and get the final payment. Leave Leo to the foul play without me from now on. This is the last time, Mom, I promise. Your little Stevie starts grad school Monday.

Ever send a coded message?

Today’s guest blog is by Clyde..

I will not be joining you on The Trail today.

Instead I will begin the process of moving our stuff, much too much stuff, to our new home, or as Thoreau described it, pushing my possessions down the road ahead of me. Fortunately it is only a 2.5 mile push from a 1600-square-foot ground-level association home to a 1200-square-foot ground-level apartment. For the next three days I will haul over boxes. Then the pros will haul our furniture on Thursday. “Why are you moving?” everyone asks, since it does not seem like much of a change. Not many seem to like our answers. After all, we are giving up home ownership, the Great American Dream.

Most of our reasons are not worth your time to explain, but one I would like to offer especially to you because I think Babooners, unlike almost everyone else, will understand it. You, see, we want to try on a new life style. I admit it is not much of a change, but it depends on how you, or rather we, look at it. And, alas, it as much of a change as we can manage at this point in our life. For six years we tried living in an association, Efrafa as I have called it on here, which is not as bad as I have hinted, but does not suit us. We imagine a freer life, with a bit more ready cash and predictable expenses and no maintenance responsibilities. My wife, the addicted viewer of HGTV, will have a new blank canvas to decorate.

The real challenge will be for both of us to envision and use this new space and location—plus our money, time, and creativity—to think in new ways about ourselves, our place in church and community, and our limited time on earth.

Thoreau in Walden explained that in his imagination he had owned every farm in the vicinity. He had organized each farm in turn, tilled it, planted it, and harvested it without the bother of actually owning it. Similarly my wife and I have often tried on other life styles in our imagination: renting an apartment in one of those old buildings on Grand Avenue or in Dinkytown, teaching in a rural Alaska village, owning a hobby farm, spending a year living only from a small motor-home and driving North America, flipping houses, or going to seminary together. Because my favorite reading topic is travel books and books about what it is like to live a different kind of life somewhere else, I have in my imagination lived hundreds of lives.

I believe Babooners will understand my explanation because so many of you have deliberately crafted a life style, whether in rural Carlton County, in south Minneapolis, western Dakota, or all the places and ways you live.

My question for you is simple:

What other life styles have you lived in your imagination?