Category Archives: Family

Family, Stories

If the Walls Could Talk

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Today’s post comes to us from Crystal Bay.

My youngest child, Steve, is a 45 year- old single father now. Two years ago, his then wife broke his heart by divorcing him.  They’d just finished building their “forever home” which he’d been designing for years. My thoughts about why this 13-year relationship deteriorated to the point of no return are that he put in 80-hour weeks working, partly on his four businesses and partly on building this masterpiece of a home. He’d come home and just collapse in exhaustion night after night.  It may also have been compromised because of her career as one of Minnesota’s finest actresses in small theater and the Guthrie. Acting was always her greatest passion in life. She wasn’t even sure that she’d want to add motherhood to this lifestyle. At 41, she agreed to have a baby, and another one at 44.

The thing about relationships is that they, too, need to be tended to and worked on. He more or less, in his zeal to create the perfect home for his family, put too much energy and time into it and too little into their relationship. Any relationship can slowly die through neglect, and by the time she finally admitted her unhappiness, it turned out to be too late.

The first year without her was devastating for Steve. At the time, they had a brand new baby girl and a 3-year old son.  He’d yearned to be a daddy for years, and finally was.  The custody arrangement is 50/50, every other week end and 2-3 nights a week.  He loves Charlie and Leo so much that to this day, he weeps at night when they’re not with him.  I personally have never seen a more loving, involved, and devoted father in my life.

He designed this home around making it an adventure for his kids. Wall panels, when pushed, open up to tunnels and secret spaces behind the walls.  Under both staircases, there are hideaways, some with little ladders going up to the second floor with more hidden spaces.  A large book shelf is a hidden door to a kid-sized space, too.

In the second-floor master bedroom, he had a door installed just for a rope swing bridge out to an elaborate tree house. In the backyard, he installed a 100-foot zip line.  His large sun porch has a high brick fireplace.  On the second floor, behind the back side of the fireplace, he built four small bunk beds for sleepovers.  These, too, can only be accessed through hidden doors.

The most special project of all, however, is a 25-foot long spiral slide which goes from the first level down to the lower level. He even put LED lights in it so that the darkness wouldn’t scare the kids.  They come shooting out the bottom of it at fairly high speed.  Many an adult has accepted a dare to try this slide, but usually after having a few drinks first!  It really is scary.

Steve, having only been in this home for a few weeks before he and his wife began living apart, wanted badly to sell it. There were no positive family memories in the new walls and it was far too large for just one guy.  For months, just being in it alone created heartbreak.  He even spent a few months mostly living in a close friend’s cramped apartment to avoid the painful feelings of being in the family dream home he’d built.  None of us wanted him to sell.

Over time, friends and family began to fill the walls with posit

ive, joyful energy. He’s hosted every family gathering in almost two years, and we’ve established a tradition of everyone being involved in making meals together. The kitchen’s so large that a dozen of us can have plenty of room to prepare our own part of the meal.  Even the little kids contribute by mixing things or cutting up veggies. Last fall, after being asked by a neighbor if he’d have the annual neighborhood party, the home was filled with 70 people and had room to spare.  Inch by inch, month by month, this is truly becoming Steve’s home.  When asked if he still plans to sell it, he always says,” I don’t know – we’ll see”.  My hopes that he’ll stay increase with every new project he does for his little ones.  He just got a black lab p

uppy, so that’s also encouraging.  No one more deserves to occupy this grand home than the man who built it.

Note: The Strib was doing a feature about homes which included fun spaces for kids and asked if they could take some photos and do an interview for their Home section. We were all kind of surprised that his creations took up the entire front and back pages. His now 6-year old Leo is standing in the slide’s opening and Steve’s the one at the bottom of it. Another photo captures the clan in the potluck line after preparing our meal together.

How have the walls of your home helped you through life?

Family, Food, Uncategorized

Flour Power

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Husband and I were delighted to find a bag of Swany White flour recently in a natural food store in Fargo. The store owner told us that Nicole, of Nicole’s Fine Pastry in downtown Fargo, won’t use anything but Swany White. Nicole makes great pastries. He also said that Nicole and the mill owner were cousins.  (I love the small town angle in these conversations.) I hadn’t seen any Swany White since the Freeport, MN mill burned down a few years ago.  We had heard rumors that the mill was operating again. We snapped up a 25 lb bag, and hauled it home. I baked French bread with it this past weekend. I used a combination of Swany, Artisan flour, and Bread flour.  We froze all the loaves as we had too much bread already to start another loaf, so I can’t say if the flour quality is the same. It doesn’t have the same bran flecks the original flour had. It is just as finely ground though, like silk.

I think we have more kinds of flour than most people. In addition to the Swany White, we have King Arthur all-purpose white flour and King Arthur bread flour. We have King Arthur artisan flour, French flour, whole wheat flour, and white whole wheat flour.  We also have a bag of White Lily flour for Southern-style biscuits and white wheat berries for a rustic Italian bread we like to make.

Husband is a real fan of baking rye bread, so he has white rye, pumpernickel, medium rye, rye flour blend, rye chops (coursely ground rye berries), rye bread improver, deli rye sour, First Clear flour (it increases the gluten content in rye breads), and frozen rye sourdough starter. He tries to replicate the wonderful rye breads we found in Winnipeg.

On Sunday, Husband bought Rose Beranbaum’s The Baking Bible for me as a Mother’s Day present. I think he had ulterior motives for me to bake pastries for him. Rose is an absolute fanatic about flour, and compares the protein content of various flours and likes to balance the proteins in her breads using bleached and unbleached flours for just the right results. I think she goes too far, but who am I to judge. She really likes Gold Medal bleached flour as a basic baking flour.

Husband’s brother-in-law has tried for years to replicate the hard rolls baked in their home town of Sheboygan WI that are used for bratwurst. They are wonderful rolls that I have not encountered anywhere but in Sheboygan.  Batch after batch has been baked and deemed lacking. I convinced him that the problem is in his home oven, and so he is thinking about a wood fired clay oven in the back yard.  He is also thinking about apprenticing himself to a Sheyboygan bakery to finally solve the problem. If you knew Husband’s  brother-in-law, you would agree that keeping him busy with this is best for all concerned.

We read at Easter about Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness when he says to Lucifer that man doesn’t live by bread alone. I think the Devil has a point, though. Bread is wonderful. I don’t see our going overboard over bread or flour as sinful at all. There are worse things we could be doing.

What makes you go overboard?

 

 

Baboon Achievers, Family, gardening

Battle of the Boulevard

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Purple is my favorite color; you’d think that purple flowers would be my favorites as well. And for the most part, you’d be correct, except for the aromatic little purple flowers that are taking over my front boulevard.  Creeping charlie, also known as ground ivy, creeping Jenny, catsfoot and run-away-robin, is the bane of my existence.

In general I don’t care for ground cover unless it only covers the ground that I want it to cover. Unfortunately that’s not how ground cover works. I think of it as a virus that I’ve caught. I’ve gotten plants from so many places, that I’m not even sure where I caught the virus but based on where I first noticed it, it probably came from something I purchased at Bachmans. Tsk tsk.

I tried the easier poisonous route last summer and not only did it poison one of my peonies, it didn’t really work. So this summer is the battle of YA and I against the CC. On Sunday we spent about 5 hours weeding and half of that was an all out attack on the purple menace on the boulevard. I did the tedious around-the-flowers/bushes weeding while YA went for a more scorched-earth policy of ripping up whole chunks of sod, roots and shoots and all.  We talked about the fact that we’ll have to do this all summer and probably some of next summer as well.  YA must have concurred; I came home today to find a pile of CC pulled from the side of the house near our raspberries.  So I guess it’s official – it’s the two of us versus the creeping charlie!

When have you had to do battle?

Family, Fifty Words, History, Uncategorized

Fargo

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Today’s post comes from tim

 

fargo was my dads home and his dads home i was the big dog from the cities when i went to visit cousin dan did show me around like it was cool to know a guy from the cities this was at the time when flower power and mod fashion were the rage

tell me about your psychadyllic moments man

 

 

Family, Uncategorized

Passing Time

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Today’s post is from tim

i had to fill out an application on line with what appeared to be a program that wasn’t quite right. it asked for my date of birth and when i went to type in my month date and year, it was obvious  the only way to get there was to click the little arrow on the top of the calendar back a month then another until i got back to the correct date. it was frustrating and after i had clicked back i discovered it called for another calendar for my wife so i tried to backdoor the form and lost the first one with all the typewritten name and details required in addition to the many, many many clicks on the birthday response.

this time a funny thing happened on my way to the finish line, i started being aware of where i was in my life as i did a reverse recount of my life, then again when i did my wife’s bd, and by the time i was done with my kids i had clicked past dates i hadn’t thought about multiple times. i didn’t stop and think but i slowed a little each time and as i went by the last time i had added enough memory each time that it was a deep dive in total

 

when was you last surprise positive experience

 

books, Family, Uncategorized

Reading

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I come from a family of readers.  My paternal grandfather was a farmer who read voraciously, and had shelves of books in his house. He had an entire set of Dickens, all of Shakespeare’s plays, and many, many history books and novels, which he picked up at farm sales during the Depression. When he died, I took the books, and my librarian cousin took the shelves, which were the kind used by lawyers that had glass fronts that opened up from the bottom.  I think they are called Barrister’s bookcases

Grandpa’s grandfather was a reader, too. He was named Martin Cornelius Freerks, and was born in Rysum, Ostfriesland Germany in 1827. He was a laborer there, and immigrated to the US in about 1851. He lived first in Pekin, Illinois, and worked as a drayman, which meant he was responsible for meeting passengers at the train station to haul them and their goods where they needed to go.  Family history indicates that he was often absorbed in a book when the train came in and would arrive late or not at all. “Ganz in boeken besiet” (completely lost in books) friends and family would say.  He eventually moved to Iowa and lived the last part of his life with my grandpa and his family. Grandpa said that Martin had “a whole roomful’ of books accumulated over the years.

I used to read all the time, but for some reason, perhaps due to life stress with my parents’ deaths, children’s transitions, work issues, etc., I stopped reading for pleasure about five years ago and filled my spare time with crossword puzzles.  I am trying to start reading again. Husband visits our local libraries regularly, and we have scores of books in our house. I just have to pick up something and start and apply myself. I typically like traditional murder mysteries, but I find them hard to appreciate now. I am impatient waiting for the plots to resolve. I don’t like suspense these days.  Perhaps I need to start with non-fiction and work my way back to previously unread novels.  I think it will be good self care if I do.

Daughter says she is going to join a book club when she graduates from college, and admits she has a book addiction problem.  Great Great Grandpa Martin would be pleased.

What are the pleasures and pains of reading for you? What is hard/easy for you to read? What do you want done with your books when you die?

Business, Family

Just Breathe

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Today’s post comes from tim.

the need to breathe is well documented

i find myself breathing differently when under stress especially newly realized urgent response called for kind of stress is introduced

i remind myself to breathe, to try to stay in a thinking vs reaction mode (dual mode are the reality) to try to help by doing a meditative shoulder roll and uhmmmm kind of mantra and then to look for avenues to the desired end result in light of newly introduced whatever that input was

some times like when i switched the bald tires from the front to the back on my car only to get caught in icy conditions the next day and have the 65 mph rear end of my freshly rotated vehicle go around the curve on the freeway ahead of me like a snowboarder in the x games

i bet i did do a little body english and a quick look to the side ala dorthy in the tornado at the sights going by during my rotation but i must have had an instinctive response because upon completing one full rotation i regained my original trajectory and found a new appreciation for simply going forward.

last tuesday after assurances from my property manager that my landlord word discuss extending my lease beyond  the 6 month offer made when she was confronted with the reality of her thoughts of selling the leaky lifeboat she had me occupying, i told her i’d fix it up and give her a fair price but only through my mediator. i tried to push for a conclusion before taking off for china and by golly thursday i got my wish

notice to be out by may 31. i get back from china may 3 and leave again may 8 for the week to return the 12th. my breath got short, my shoulders tensed the meeting with developers needing my direction for the final tweak of a program we are working on hiccuped severely and i decided how to break the news to my wife 48 hours before my departure.

i tried talking to the property manager and went invisible

i told my wife and sent her the rental property entities i am familiar with and she started her search

she found a new one who is custom made for people in my circumstance and i called the guy at 2 and was viewing houses by 245 with 2 more than acceptable options to take her to on friday morning and as i am getting ready to board my flight for the detroit to shanghai leg of my flight i am trying to decide on bigger quieter with a yard or exactly the right size with a busy street and no yard to speak of but parks across the street and bicycle paths lake access etc less than 3 minutes away.

i am breathing ok and hope my application goes through as expected.

i hate having to remember to breathe.

 

when have you felt relieved?

 

 

Family, Nature

A Day at the Zoo

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It was a beautiful day for the zoo. In the morning, as many families were still hunting for eggs and chocolate bunnies, we headed off.  Starting off in the Tropics we discovered that every morning they simulate a little thunder shower near Gibbon Island.  Since Young Adult and I have easily been to the zoo 50 times in her lifetime, it was quite a surprise that we’d never encountered it before.

The moose and bears were in fine form and the Amur leopards were all three putting on a fine show. We happened upon coyote feeding and, of course, sat through the bird show. We packed a partial lunch which was supplemented by waffle fries and then wandered up to The Farm for baby goat, piglet and calf petting.  And then there was the obligatory 20 minutes of watching YA pet sharks in Discovery Bay.

But the most amazing display was YA, who suggested the outing to the zoo in the first place, willingly posed for several photos, engaged in conversation about our straw bale gardening over lunch and even said thank you after I purchased popcorn for her. It was a beautiful day.

What is a favorite haunt of yours?

Family, Stories, Uncategorized

Name That Breed

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Today’s post is from NorthShorer

His name was Lucky. My father acquired him when we lived north of Isabella where my father was lumberjacking after WWII. A man in the lumber camp was leaving and did not want to take the dog. My father took him before the man shot him. It was that kind of age. My father was not objecting; he simply wanted a dog. We then moved down to our farm near Two Harbors. I suppose my father had in mind to have a farm dog.I remember him but have no visual image of him, except for these pictures. Every time I see these and other photos I am surprised by two things. First, how big and rough looking a dog he was. Second, that the only images of him are with me. Apparently we were buddies, which makes sense because of all the time I spent playing in the woods. He lasted with us for a couple years. I can guess what happened to him. He certainly does not look like a cattle dog. I used Lucky as the image for a short story about a half wild dog living on the edge of northern town in 1908.

He was replaced by a collie, who was beautiful, an image of Lassie. She played with the deer in our garden in the snow in the winter time. She was not around very long. Next we briefly had a female mixed breed, mostly border collie. Then we acquired a full breed border collie from a neighbor who did not want the dog anymore. He was THE DOG of my childhood.

What breeds do you see in Lucky?

My only companions of my pre-school years were two older nasty cousins up in the forest, my sister, and various animals.

What do you remember of your companions of your pre-school years?

Family, History

Tumbling Socialists

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Husband and I attended a family wedding in Milwaukee, WI recently. The ceremony and reception were held in the ballroom at Turner Hall, a historic building constructed in 1882. It takes its name from the German word “turnen” which means gymnastics or physical fitness. It was built for the members of Milwaukee’s Turners, a German-American gymnastic and political association. The photo at the top is of actual Milwaukee Turners.  The building was quite ornate, but under restoration, with murals and photographs all over the walls and stairwells. The hall boasts of a ballroom, beer hall, and theatre, as well as a gymnasium where gymnastics is still taught.

The Turners began in Germany in 1811 to train young men in physical fitness and to resist Napoleon and anti-democratic forms of government.  It was a nationalistic gymnastic organization, usually quite liberal in philosophy.  Men tumbled and planned revolutions.  The Turners were very active in the revolution of 1848. They didn’t do so well in that revolution, and many fled to the US, with a great number serving in the Union Army during the Civil War.  Turners provided an honor guard at Abe Lincoln’s inauguration as well as at his funeral. There were Turner Halls all over the US in the 19th Century in areas where there were concentrations of German immigrants. The Milwaukee chapter was founded in 1853 with the name “Socialist Turnverein”.  All three of Milwaukee’s Socialist mayors were Turners.

The Turners held gymnastic competitions and provided social, political, and cultural support to German immigrants. The Turners are the reason we have physical education in our schools.  They supported women’s suffrage, and, by the 1920’s, girls were also getting gymnastic training at the Milwaukee hall. My sister in law’s 90 year old mother tumbled and did rings and uneven bars there, under the direction of a male coach who would wack her with a stick if she messed up.  They often espoused the motto  “A Sound Mind in a Sound Body”,  but I really like the more explicit motto below:

Liberty against all oppression

Tolerance against all fanaticism

Reason against all superstition

Justice against all exploitation

If you started an organization, what would your motto be?