Category Archives: home

2025, animals, Family, Health, home, Uncategorized

Billows

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I couldn’t find the cat yesterday afternoon, so I looked in our bedroom and found her snuggled in the down comforter we keep on our bed. She had been there for hours. You can see her in the header photo. She looks pretty comfortable, I think.

We have twelve very nice goose down pillows for the three queen size beds in our home, plus down comforters for each bed. Our friend who will live with us is allergic to feathers, so we bought two non-down pillows for her when she visits. The dog sleeps with us and also expects to have a pillow for his head at night. We are a spoiled bunch.

Husband’s allergies are so much better here. He is very allergic to cats and dust. There is very little dust compared to western North Dakota, and it seems the cat is shedding less now, probably because the humidity is higher. Our friend’s four cats will stay in the basement after she moves in, but I think we will get an air cleaner or two to mitigate any upward cat dander migration. I just had a Shark vacuum delivered that is especially good for pet hair, so I think we are covered. The dog doesn’t shed.

What kind of pillows do you prefer? Do you let pets sleep with you? If you have allergies, how do you manage them?

2025, Fantasy, holidays, home, Mysteries

Prince Who?

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On Tuesday we talked about trick-or-treaters and Bill mentioned that he and Robin also ask kids about their costumes.  I assume that most all adults do this.  It’s a low-level way to make a short connection.

One of my last little groups consisted of a girl in a pink princess dress and a boy in some kind of princely attire.  Knowing that I would never see these kids again and knowing that they won’t care a whit about whether I’m crazy or not, I started a conversation:

Me:  What a great costume.  Are you the Count of Monte Cristo? (knowing full well this kids wouldn’t know what I was talking about.)
Count:  No, I’m Prince Philip
Me:  Oh, from Sleeping Beauty.
Count:  No from Maleficent.
Me:  Silence for a bit.
Me:  (turning to the girl)  Are you a princess?
Count:  She’s Sleeping Beauty
Me:  more silence
Me:  Here we go (handing out the candy)

While I was perfectly willing to be silly about the Count of Monte Cristo, I didn’t think I needed to get into an argument on my front steps with kids about Prince Philip trick-or-treating with Sleeping Beauty but not knowing they were in the same story.

Tell me about a costume you wore as a child (Halloween, school play, whatever…)

 

2025, Family, Food, Gatherings, holidays, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Thanks

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I have purposely chosen to not write about Halloween today, as it seems to me we have enough horror and fear around us. Instead, I wanted to let Baboons know what I am thankful for right now.

First, I am thankful to all the Baboons for putting up with all the posts I have written over the past several months about moving. I am sure they were getting pretty tedious to read. Moving is over, and now we are getting settled and organized. Not much more needs to be said about it.

I am also thankful for the increased time with our son and his family. We saw them yesterday in Sioux Falls and I got the best smiles from our 3 month old granddaughter.

Thanksgiving is four weeks away, and our son has requested a particular brined turkey ala Alton Brown, homemade French bread, and various other side dishes. Son and family, along with my best friend, will spend Thanksgiving weekend with us. I am so excited to cook in our new kitchen.

Finally, I am thankful that the court hearing Husband was to testify remotely at yesterday was settled on Wednesday afternoon. He had done a parental capacity evaluation on the parent in hot water with a central ND county. Now he is officially done working.

What are you thankful for these days. What are your Thanksgiving plans?

2025, Family, home, Kids, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Crimson and Scarlet Trees

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Our son and daughter loved listening to Rabbit Ears productions of children’s stories narrated by famous actors accompanied by wonderful musicians. One of their favorites was a story about Paul Bunyon narrated by Jonathan Winters with music by Leo Kottke. It was funny to hear Paul Bunyan talk about the assignment he got from the president to clear off all the trees from North Dakota. We could certainly relate, as we had a dearth of trees in our region.

Husband has really enjoyed walking the dog and seeing all the crimson and scarlet maple leaves in the neighborhood. We didn’t have these kind of maples in ND. He said the last time he lived in a place that had maples like this was 46 years ago in Madison, WI. The trees in Dickinson were mainly Green Ash and Cottonwoods. Their leaves were pretty blah in the fall.

We have a maple and an oak in the our front boulevard. We also have a Birch in the backyard, along with a Blue Spruce and a Flowering Crab. There are also all sorts of Arbor Vitae. We are well set for trees and bushes. The header photo is a tree across the street from us

What trees do you have in your yard? Any favorite Jonathan Winter or Leo Kottke creations?

2025, Family, home, Nature, Uncategorized

Salty Water

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Unless you got your water from a well back in Dickinson, no one needed a water softener. Our city water came from the Missouri River, and had just the right amount of minerals and wasn’t too hard. You didn’t need a special tap and faucet for drinking water

I had forgot that back here in Rock County, everyone has a water softener, as the water is very hard. The people we bought the house from were kind enough to leave us several bags of softener salt. The kitchen is plumbed so that our drinking water comes through the refrigerator door/icemaker. It is going to be tedious to fill up the tall pasta pot with water from the fridge door. I also have to get used to feeling as though I didn’t get all the soap off when I take a shower.

There were two guys in town with the same last name of Frakes who both were friends of my dad. One ran the Culligan franchise, so dad called him “Softwater Frakes”. The other was a building contractor named Marion who was married to a woman my dad called “The Devil’s Grandmother” due to her fussy and irascible temperament. I think of them now every time I drive passed the Culligan shop.

What are your favorite songs and stories about water and the sea. Anyone who you know who could be the Devil’s Grandmother?

2025, animals, Family, home, pets, Uncategorized

Hello, Fritz!

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Since moving into the new house, Husband and I have been visited by a very cheeky Boston Terrier/Miniature Poodle mix named Fritz. He lives next door with a calico cat who also frequents our yard. Our yard is currently unfenced, but we have arranged to have it fenced in early November. None of the people on our block have fences, and animals seem to run at will.

Fritz’s person told us that he was a frequent visitor to the former owners who worked from home and often let him into the house and even into bed with them. (I don’t see that happening with us.) He also enjoyed playing with their hunting dog. He appears to view our house as an extention of his. His owners are fine with us putting up a fence. I hope that he and Kyrill can hit it off. Kyrill is currently being boarded at the local vet along with the cat, so he and Fritz haven’t met yet.

The movers unloaded our things on Wednesday, and with the help of our son we have unpacked a great many boxes. We have a lot left to do, but we were able to sleep in the house last night. We find ourselves strangely exhausted despite having had more sleep in the past couple of nights than we have had in months. My anxiety level has dropped precipitously. It feels very good to be here. I even like Fritz.

Any stories about your neighborhood pets? How do you introduce your pets to other neighbors and animals?

2025, home, Travel, Uncategorized, Weather

Wind and Speed

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Monday was a terribly windy day in Dickinson. We were in a High Wind Warning, and the winds were a steady 40 mph, with gusts up to 60. It stayed pretty windy into the evening. It was cold and miserable, and we had to make a couple of trips to the landfill and drive to a little nearby town to pick up the dog from bring boarded. It didn’t get really windy until after the movers had loaded the truck.

Yesterday was fairly calm on our drive out of town until Bismarck. Then the gusts started up to 39 mph, and the winds were dreadful all the way to Sioux Falls. Husband was driving the pickup and I was in the van with the dog. I am thoroughly sick of wind.

Our mover told us that if it was too windy on Tuesday he wouldn’t be able to drive to Luverne until the wind died down. I passed him near Bismarck, and he appears to have made it to town and will unload today. I drove about 85 mph the whole way to Luverne pushed along by northwest winds. Husband drove about 70 mph and arrived a lot later than I did. We are heartily sick of driving, traveling, and wind. Now we will unpack. Whew!

What are your favorite songs and stories about wind and speed (even slow speed).

2025, home, Mysteries, Technology

Tech Levity

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First the technology, then the laughter.

Thanks to YA, we actually have three Echoes in the house.  I’ve never been quite sure why they are called Echo instead of just Alexa, since you have to say “Alexa” to wake them up.  But that’s a mystery for another day.  One of these devices is in my bedroom and her primary occupation is to tell me the current temperature.  Every now and then, when I am too lazy to grab my phone, she gets the occasional “what time is ***** open today?”  She does try to get me to up my game by asking me periodically if I want her to perform some other task, to which my answer is always “no thanks”.

Now to the laughter.

The last couple of days I’ve been watching My Life is Murder on DVDs that I got from the library.  It’s a murder mystery series starring Lucy Lawless of Xena Warrior Princess fame.  It’s filmed in Australia and New Zealand.  It’s not a cozy but it’s not as dark as a lot of the other mystery series out there.  I’m really enjoying it.

The main character’s name is Alexa Crowe, a retired police detective who consults on hard-to-solve cases.  At least once each episode (I’ve seen about 12 of them so far), someone will use this character’s name and my Echo/Alexa promptly responds “I’m sorry I don’t think I can help you with this”.  The first time it happened I wasn’t quite sure I had heard correctly so I backed up the DVD to hear it again.  Yep – my Alexa was answering the tv.

In the last episode of the second season, someone asked “Alexa, how are you doing?”.  My Alexa immediately responded “I’m doing OK today, thank you.”  I about fell off the bed, I laughed so hard.  It felt good to laugh that hard.  But then I realized that my tv and my Echo/Alexa may be in a relationship that I don’t know about!

Anything you can laugh at this week?

2025, Food, home, Uncategorized

Pasta

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Being the efficient person that I am, I have been packing up any nonessentials as I have had time to do. Husband mentioned Tuesday that he wanted Fettucine Alfredo for supper. We had cream and everything else for it except fettuccine, since I had packed up all the dry pasta weeks ago. We settled for some nice fresh fettuccine from the grocery store.

I love to make my own fresh pasta and I look forward to being able to make it more often after we move. I have made tortellini, homemade lasagna, ravioli, and taggliatelle. Spaghetti is hard to make with our crank pasta maker. Grandson says that buttered noodles, which includes actual noodles as well as any kind of pasta, are his favorite things to eat. When I was his age it was a treat to have Chef Boyardee canned spaghetti. I don’t think I had spaghetti out of a box until I was in college.

I was lucky to have as a landlady in Winnipeg a woman who had immigrated to Canada from Calabria, and she helped me choose a crank pasta maker from the local Italian grocery store and taught me how to use and care for it. I remember her husband, also from Calabria, lamenting how awful the spaghetti was at a spaghetti dinner sponsored by their very English Catholic church (They had left the Italian Catholic church in Winnipeg due to a conflict with the priest). The spaghetti was really gluey and overcooked.

What are your earliest memories of spaghetti? What are your favorite pasta dishes?

2025, animals, Family, home, Travel, Uncategorized

Traveling Kitty

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Today as you read this, Husband and I are making the first of two trips to Luverne over the next two weeks. The main purpose of this trip is to go to our 2 month old granddaughter’s baptism in Brookings on Sunday. The other reason for the trip is to bring to the new house as much food from our freezers and liquids the moving company won’t transport.

Wedged in the back of our van, surrounded by coolers filled with frozen food, boxes of home canned tomatoes, cans of olive oil, and jars of fancy vinegars will be our cat, Luna, in the dog crate. We decided to move her on this trip since it seemed rather too stressful to move both the cat and the dog at once.

The last time Luna made this trip was nine years ago when she was a kitten and had been rescued by our son and daughter-in-law from underneath a deck in Brookings. Our daughter was visiting them at the time and drove the cat to Dickinson after staying with Daughter and her college roommates in Moorhead a few weeks. Her only trips since then have been excursions to the local vet. It is a 550 mile trip to Luverne. Once we get her there she will be boarded at the Rock County Vet Clinic until we are moved into the new house on the 22nd.

We are going to try to make her as comfortable as possible with a litter box, soft blankets, and a small water bowl in the dog crate. I am not optimistic about her being happy at all with this trip and then being subsequently boarded. I will let you all know how it is going as the day progresses.

What are your experiences traveling with pets? Any advice for us today?