Gramps remembers - Living my dream

 Living my dream

I am often greeted by a few people when I ask how their day is going. Their response is “living my dream!” and that has raised my thoughts to “am I living my dream?” To which I think, nope, no, and nada. I did not in my wildest dream think of this! Working at a big box retail store.

Let me explain. 

When I was in my late teens, my thought was when I retire at 40, I would be living in a timber frame cabin on the Peshtigo River. The cabin would face the river, have a large fireplace with large windows overlooking the river. I would be sitting in a large, overstuffed chair, and have an end table with books piled high to read. As the snowflakes as big as boxcars started falling, the fireplace blazing, I would pop a cork on my whisky bottle and pour myself a whiskey in glass and contemplate how great my life is.

Another dream was to build a carpenter/remodeler business and work my way across  Wisconsin to where I grew up.
 

Then there was the thought of becoming a Chippendale dancer. And I joined the Fred Astaire Dance Studio. That was a really fleeting dream. While I could tango, cha-cha, do the swing dances, it was far from being a dancer of my dreams, and that dream was thrown into the trashcan.
 

So, I decided to follow my career path of carpentry and become journeyman carpenter building homes and ramrodding crews as a foreman. Over the years, I built homes from 150k upward to 25 million and 20,000 square feet. But mostly, I was building homes for 500k to 1ml. The ride was fun. Along the way, I became an estimator, then a senior estimator, along with training as a quality evaluator in Baldrige Criteria and ISO9000
 

When the housing crashed in 2008, I was laid off as a senior estimator from a large contractor. I found myself doing some inner work of what to do now and landed on the idea of building tiny homes and planning, designing, building tiny homes. Another dream was launched. Some were saying that starting a business in a recession is a bad idea. Ah, naysayers are a dime a dozen at times.
 

Then I found my greatest joy and dream by being a father to 3 sons and grandfather to 11 grandchildren.

•    “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” —Zig Ziglar
•    “Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.” —Pablo Picasso
•    “Don't settle for average. Bring your best to the moment. Then, whether it fails or succeeds, at least you know you gave all you had.” —Angela Bassett
•    “Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.” —Isabel Allende
•    “Don't bunt. Aim out of the ballpark. Aim for the company of immortals.” ―David Ogilvy
•    “I have stood on a mountain of no’s for one yes.” —Barbara Elaine Smith
•    “If you believe something needs to exist, if it's something you want to use yourself, don't let anyone ever stop you from doing it.” —Tobias Lütke
•     "More is lost by indecision than wrong decision.” —Marcus Tullius Cicero
•     "If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever." —Thomas Aquinas
•    "You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches." —Dita Von Teese

Gramps Remembers Farm Living

 

1966 - Sauerkraut

After the 4th year of living Under the Ledge on my dad’s farm, mom decided to expand the garden so she could preserve garden crops for the long winter months ahead. Mom thought it would be a clever idea to plant cabbage, lettuce, carrots, beans, peas, beets, turnips, tomatoes, and other crops for late summer harvesting.

A friend of my parents, Arnie Sartorius, sold seedlings from his greenhouse by Gravely Brook. He was a single confirmed bachelor and lived down the road from his mother, Ester Sartorius, who was one of mom’s best friends. Mom would get her started plants from Arnie, such as tomatoes, cucumber, cabbage, pumpkin, and squash plants that Arnie had started in the early spring in his greenhouses.

Our main garden was 300’ wide by 300’ deep. After a neighbor came over to plow the area Dad used his yellow troybilt tiller to turn the freshly plowed area to a pulverized soil to plant in.

Dad staked the rolls and helped place the seeds to the right distance and depth for germination. My sister and I would be responsible for weeding rolls while dad tilled between the rolls of plants. After those seeds sprouted, it was time to plant the new seedlings from Arnie’s greenhouse. My added duties included pumping water from the well and the watering the seedlings to keep them alive.

My sister and I would spend a lot of our days weeding the rolls of plants to keep the garden weed free. My sister did not like weeding, so she convinced some neighbor kids across the river to come over and help weed the garden. In return she threw a tea party as payment for their weeding efforts. 

For weeks in early July. I attended 4-H camp at Camp Bird and while I was away, dad would maintain the garden. While I was at camp, mom purchased 2 goats for milking and upon coming home from camp, it was time to water, feed, and milk the 2 goats.

One afternoon after I had watered and feed the goats in the lower barn, I started running back to the house and landed on a board in the tall grass that had a large 20 penny spike sticking out of it. I yelled as I fell forward and yanked the board and spike off my foot, all the while wailing, then limped to the house. My mom saw me and asked what had happened, she removed my shoe and bloodied sock and saw where the nail and penetrated the foot and came out the top on it. 

She loaded me up in the car and took me to the Borden Clinic in Marinette, WI. Dr Jim Borden saw me right way and after scrubbing and running a small brush thru the wound, said I needed to keep it elevated for a week. I perceived this as good news and I could read and be lazy for bit and said that to mom. Mom retorted “not so fast, we will find other chores for you to do while recuperating.

Upon arriving home, she had me sit on the rocking chair by the phone and told me I would be helping make sauerkraut and relishes for the next week.

Mom had dad and my sister harvest the cabbage, clean them, and bring them by my chair. I removed the damaged leaves and cut out the core throwing it into a bucket. Then I set the cabbage shredder with a bucket under the knives and ran the cabbage across it to slice the cabbage for mom to put in a crock for the fermenting process.

Since making sauerkraut is ancient skill, it needs only the basics: cabbage, salt, cabbage shredder, sharp knife, big bowl, and storage containers. It’s as simple as that!

1. Cabbage. Various types contain different amounts of sugar, but generally best fermentation results are achieved with large solid heads of white cabbage. You can use all kinds of cabbage-heads and still get great sauerkraut, but the larger the head (especially if it’s been picked in late autumn) – the higher percentage of sugar it contains and faster the fermentation.
2. Salt. Choose natural non iodized salt. Non-iodized salt will not slow down bacterial fermentation plus it’s full of minerals. Since you will later drink and use fermented kraut’s juice (which is very healthy source of vitamins and healthy gut bacteria) – it’s best to use a good quality salt. On average, you will need 2-2.5% of salt by weight.
3. Cabbage shredder. It’s important that shredder’s blades are sharp and adjusted for fine shredding. Having high quality cabbage shredder will make the experience of making homemade sauerkraut fast, easy and enjoyable since process of shredding is basically the only “work” you will have to do to make this delicious, beneficial and healthy food.
4. Large bowl. You will need it to slice cabbage into it without making a mess you must clean up later.
5. Storage containers. You can use earthenware crocks, food-grade plastic containers or glass containers. Mom used a 25-gallon crock to start with before packing quart jars with the sauerkraut and sealing the jars.

After having spent several days slicing cabbage I moved onto to the process of making relishes by slicing and mincing pickles for the relish so mom could do her thing. Mom put all the ingredients into another smaller crock before scooping the relish into jar and blanching them to seal the lids.

My tasks and elevated foot were now able to resume some light duties. My mom cut out the toes of my tennis shoes so that my toes could breathe while my foot healed. I then wore shorts, t shirt and my tennis shoe the rest of that summer until school started.

My mom then showed me my new shoes, pants, and shirts for the start of school that she had purchased at store sales earlier in the spring. She had thought ahead, and she planned for me start as a freshman in high school. But she had not noticed my growth spurt that summer as I had grown to 6”- 1” from 5’ - 7”.

However, my high school gym coach noticed the change of height and weight and had me step on a scale. Then he measured me for a varsity jacket as they now wanted me in football as well as track.  I was already in wrestling, wrestling in the 127-weight category. My new weight category was now 164, if I could get down there, as I weighed now 180.

Seasons

 

Winter

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.
– John Steinbeck, "Travels with Charley: In Search of America"

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.
– Edith Sitwell, "I Live Under a Black Sun"

It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.
– John Burroughs, "Winter Sunshine"

Spring

Listen, can you hear it? Spring's sweet cantata. The strains of grass pushing through the snow. The song of buds swelling on the vine. The tender timpani of a baby robin's heart. Spring.
– Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, "Northern Exposure"

Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king.
– Thomas Nashe, "Summer's Last Will and Testament"

Come with me into the woods. Where spring is advancing, as it does, no matter what, not being singular or particular, but one of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.
– Mary Oliver, "Bazougey"

Summer

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby"

Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
– Henry James, "An International Episode"

I love how summer just wraps its arms around you like a warm blanket.
– Kelle Elmore, "Magic in the Backyard"

Fall

As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas and colors enough to paint the beautiful things I see.
– Vincent Van Gogh, letter to Theo van Gogh

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
– Albert Camus, "The Misunderstanding" ("Le Malentendu

Video blast from the past

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSdatXO36Mw

Gramps Remembers

 Swingin’ on a Hook

The Law of Attraction talks about what we think about will manifest into our lives. We will see what we focus or “lock on” to with our thoughts. Some folks think of ships carrying their treasures, with such statements as “when my ship comes in.” My dad used “Someday when my ship comes in I’ll…………………”  I never knew what was on his ship, as he never finished the sentence for me and it did not appear to come in. Maybe it did, and he had sought some other “treasure” than I was used to seeing when younger.

Several years ago, I was in Portland, Maine on vacation and took a tour of the harbor. It was the Lovers Lighthouse Tour, and as the seas being choppy we never left the harbor, but we did see a lot of lighthouses and sights of local interest. The skipper gave us good explanations of what we were seeing, and off in the distance were several freighters that were at anchor.

In the harbor I saw crab fisherman tending nets, the old forts to protect the harbor during WWII, numerous smaller lighthouses, huge gun batteries on shore, and islands used by permanent residents as well as tourists. But what struck me was the skipper’s description of the freighters at anchor. He referred to them as “swingin’ on a hook” as they were just waiting outside the harbor for favorable prices for the goods that were in their holds. 

The country or business they were here to deliver the goods for were in phone contact with the freighters skippers, and would issue the order to unload when prices became most favorable for them. Until then, they rested at anchor, or “swingin’ on a hook” in nautical terms.  Once the order was given, then the freighters would pull anchor and head into the harbor, dock, and unload their goods to the warehouses, etc.

The whole sequence of events made me realize that this is the Law of Attraction. Except instead of the ship being off somewhere on the high seas, it is actually in our harbor or sphere of energy, and all we need to do is give the order to the universe to dock and unload. This is the allowing aspect of the Law of Attraction.

Gramps Remembers

 The Outsider

 
I grew up in NE Wisconsin on my dad’s farm. It was not very big, about 17 acres and mostly river bottoms that flooded every spring at ice-out. I often referred to it as my dad’s hobby farm, as he had maybe 5 acres of tillable land, an old barn, machine shed, and a small apple orchard.  It was situated on a high bank of the Peshtigo River in the middle sugar bush and considered by some to be the original farm in this valley in a bygone era. 

 

But back to their beginning.

Dad and mom grew up in central Illinois and after they were married, decided to relocate to a new area far from their families, as their parents did not approve of their marriage, and thus were also not accepted by the locals.

So, they made their move to Marinette County in 1950, to start over, with me riding in the front seat and my older sister in the back. They initially settled on a small farm on County Road G, and then moved to Marinette, WI.

 
Ten 10 years later, while driving the middle sugar bush roads looking for a new place to live, they found their forever home on the Peshtigo River. The nearest neighbor was ¼ mile away on the gravel road. Mom and dad liked their privacy and solitude with seldom getting visitors! The few exceptions were canvassers or people from a church that were out and about. Dad would send the church evangelicals packing as he did not want to listen to their dogmas.  

Mom nicknamed their farm “under the ledge” as it is in the Peshtigo River valley that flows thru the high limestone bluffs from the last glacial ice age. On a clear night, we could hear the semi-trucks tires howl on the pavement of highway 64 by Harmony WI as they traveled to their destinations and could see the northern lights dance across the northern sky.

I often told my mom that making friends was difficult and her reply was that we had moved here recently and unless my father and grandfather had walked the fields with local grandfathers and great grandfathers, we would never be accepted by neighbors, or I by my classmates. Trying to date local gals was often met with “I would not date or dance with you, even if you were the last boy on earth!” So, I seldom dated as my focus was on moving to a new area.

Mom encouraged me to find friends thru 4H from different areas rather than close to home.  I then became involved in 4H and its many projects, went to wrestling practice after school, read books, and helped dad on some projects, gardening, animal husbandry around the farm.

One classmate said several years later that it seemed my attention was focused on studies, 4H, and not concerned with making friends in school.

After graduating, I worked for the summer, before leaving for the University of Minnesota with an intent to study forestry management and seldom came back for a visit. Instead, of finishing college, my inner fires were stoked when I worked on a church in Cannon Falls MN as an apprentice carpenter, and from there started a new journey as a tradesman in carpentry. 

But, that is another story for later.....

Gramps Remembers - cookie making time

 Yesterday, I delivered some Xmas cookie boxes for a friend. The driving around Burlington to deliver the Xmas cookie packages brought back memories of Xmas at our house when I was growing up.
 

From Thanksgiving to Christmas was a very special time in our home. My sister and I would hope for the 1st major snowstorm of the season that would sweep in from the west, with big white fluffy flakes as big as boxcars that would pile quickly, all so that we could hear – “No School for Peshtigo Schools” announced on the local radio station. 

It was also a time when the temperature would plummet to 30 below if not more, for more than a fortnight and the river ice just outside the kitchen window would crack and echo off the limestone outcropping a mile way, much like a rifle shot in the middle of the night. 

The 3 tall Basswood trees in the yard stood as sentinels in the light of the full moon as we glimpsed neighbors’ lights off in the distance thru frosted windowpanes.

One of the memories of the season as an early teen happened in our home every night after supper as the table was cleared and we started making, shaping, and baking Christmas cookies and making fudge. Baking each night for 12 nights we created different cookies and fudge; 12 dozen to be stored in the containers – each with an apple to keep them moist. Russian Teacups, Spritz, Almond Snow Cookies, Bourbon Balls, Brown Sugar Cookies, Oatmeal Cookies, Sour Crème Cookies, Chocolate Fudge with walnuts, and many more.

 
Each night as the cookies were baked; some would be deemed worthy of bakers only and used as special treats with a large glass of ice cold milk. By the end of the twelfth night, we had accumulated a mountain of cookies and then the boxing started. In each box would be loaded with a sampler of 6 cookies of each flavor with an apple wedge added and wrapped in the festive paper of the holiday. 

 

With the wrapping and labeling now completed - the next step was to plan the route by mom. We would awake bright early the Saturday just before Christmas Eve; eat heartily to add fuel to our inner furnace, bundle up to stay warm and head out to deliver cookies with my mother at the wheel. Extra blankets were placed in the car, and the boxes of cookies placed in the back seat as well as the trunk. 

Dad chose to stay home to keep the fires burning as we would not return until well after dark. As each package was delivered; old friendships were rekindled, stories told, coffee or tea offered shared along with conversation about how blessed we all were to have friends like each other.