Danny was a horse and baby mice hid in the vacuum cleaner.and a death in the family.

Our floors in the house were wood covered with linoleum so I never did figure out why we had a vacuum cleaner or where it came from.  I do recall that Mother kept it in the corner of her bedroom.  One day and God only knows why, she decided to pull it out and look inside the bag.  Ah!  Mother's  have a way of knowing things that mere mortals do not!  Inside the bag was 7 tiny, pink, hairless mice! She was aghast!  We gathered around and thought they were very cute and they would make lovely pets since we had no dog and Dad never let us have a cat.  This, however, was fuel for the argument that we needed a cat.  If we had a cat the mice would not be ensconced in the vacuum cleaner bag.
(Brief aside here.  We did eventually get a cat, which could not just content her/himself with mice and would eat Mother's Canary while home alone with me!)
But in the meantime we were faced with the 7 tiny mice and no cat.  Mother put them in a can and told us to go out to the front side walk and put the mice down and mash them with a brick.  Now, I hear your intakes of breathe that a mother would direct her young children to do this, but you must remember the times we grew up in.  Mice carried all kinds of diseases and something had to be done with them.  We were given the option of filling a bucket of water and drowning them.  Well, you know what good little kids we were and always did as our parents said.  This time we deviated from our chore by going instead to one of the empty buildings and made a nice nest for our new pets.  When mother asked if we had killed them, we of course lied.  Sadly when we went back to check on the mice several days later the nest was empty.  I think those things grow really fast and they moved on before we changed our minds.
Josphine was the older sister.  She had been born to my Mother and her first husband so was actually my half sister.  I found this all out later in life because it was never discussed at home.  Mom and dad had 6 kids and that was how it was.  We knew Dad had been married before and had 5 kids with his first wife.  Two of the kids, Daisy and Willie (?) had died of sand pneumonia when they were very young.  His wife had also died and he had placed the three boys in an orphanage.  Richard and Earl were adopted, but Gene was not.  What this has to do with anything completely escapes me at the moment!
When we lived on the Stroh place Dad had brought that Shetland pony home for us kids and after he kicked Jake in the head we were all afraid of him.  But Josephine was not.  She would throw a saddle on him and ride away.  She was probably 13 at the time.
Dad got a chance to pick up a brown saddle horse for next to nothing, so he brought Danny home for Josephine.  No one could ride that horse but Josephine.  Well, not that I wanted to any way.  See, my dad was in the  Army during World War I and served in the Calvary part.  He had a big hole in the bicep of his right arm.  He was bitten by a horse and if you think I wanted to be bit by a horse you are nuttier than a fruit cake!  As long as the horses stayed on the other side of the fence, I was good.  Josephine got married when she was 15 and moved with her husband to a house in the country.  She took Danny with her since that was her horse.  I do not think she rode much because she right away had a baby.  I do not know what ever happened to Danny.  I am sure when she and Charles moved into town that he went to one of the neighboring farms.  I did go stay with them sometimes and it seemed that Danny was always getting out of his fence and going visiting so some one always had to go catch him and bring him back.  They may have just quit bringing him back.
Josephine and Charles had a little girl they named Mary.  When I stayed there it was my job to take care of her.  Charles was a "rough neck" which meant he worked in the oil fields. Seems the reason they moved back into town was that Josephine was expecting another baby.  Back in those days things like having of the babies was not discussed.  I knew she was fatter than I thought she should be but did not know the reason.  They moved into a house about 5 blocks from the Strong Street house.  It was located on a corner just past the Baptist Church.  The parsonage for the Baptist Church was on the other side of the church.  I must have been about 15 at the time and so unwise to the ways of the world and where babies came from that I might have been called "stupid".   I remembered Dorothy being born while we were on the Stroh place and how I hated her because Mother had to stay in bed for 10 whole days and take care of the screaming baby.
Anyway, one day I was sent to Josephine's because Charles had to go to work and Josephine did not feel very good and I would need to take care of Mary while Josephine stayed in bed.  To make a long story short, she was in labor at 6 months!  She went to the bathroom a lot and kept crying and I just wanted to go home!  When she announced "The baby is coming!  Do something!  Hurry!"  I did the only thing I knew what to do and that was run to the parsonage and blurt out to the minister what was happening.  He called the grocery store and told his wife, who was a nurse, to get home quick.  It was very clear that he was not going to stay with Josephine and I would have to go back because Mary was there.  I lived 16 lifetimes standing by the front door with Mary waiting for the ministers wife.  When she pulled up outside I grabbed Mary and ran to my house where there was no crying, screaming sister.  
As soon as I blurted out to my mother what was happening she headed to Josephine's.
To make a long story short, the baby was born dead.  For years I lived with the guilt of what I should have done, but in the end there was nothing anyone could have done.  We had the funeral in the front room of thier home.  The funeral home guy brought the baby over in his car with the tiny coffin placed on the back seat.  Baby Boy Burch lay swaddled in a blue blanket with a tiny hand holding the blanket in place.  He looked like he was just sleeping.  That was so sad.
That story always upsets me so that is the end of the writing for today.

My idea of farming on the Mesa!

This is my rototiller.  It is a Yard Man and Kenny bought it for me many, many years ago.  He has been gone over 11 years, so you figure it was probably 13 years ago.  We usually bought our tillers and such used and then tried to make them run.  Never had much luck with that, so first time we had an extra $700.00 we went to Big R and came home with this.  It has reverse and starts and I was in heaven.  Our first decision was that no one could borrow it.  Something about having them returned with the choke wired open with a bread tie that just made us want to not loan anything out to anyone.  I have not even changed the spark plug.  Put a little Stabil in the gas tank the end of the season and I am good to go.  Oh, I have to dig vines, plastic bags and an occasional length of wire out of the tines, but that is normal in this country.

This is the lawn mower.  Unfortunately this is not the one he left me with because I loaned that one out a couple times.  No one likes to clean the filter and it came back with wobbly wheels, so this is what I have now.  And it is also treated to Stabil and runs pretty good, but nothing like that tiller.  

I had a high wheel weed whacker, but I loaned that to my son and you know the possession is 9 points of the law theory?  Finally got the small tiller I use to cut ditches back from him, but someone else borrowed it just for the day, and I am waiting for that back so I can cut the ditches in my tomato patch.

And in my zucchini and cucumber patch.

Put a new tire on the wheel barrow.

Bought a new electric chain saw.

Took down some limbs out back

Went to lunch with a lady friend.

Then came home and transplanted my pot plants!

And that night I slept like a baby!

Brothers, mothers, and praying for our lives

Jason Seeger trying to intimidate Joey.  Needless to say it did not work. Brothers always have bond, just as sisters do.  When they are little they fight over who gets Mom's attention.  As they grow into teenagers, they try to throw all the attention onto the other one for obvious reasons which might entail a punishment issue.  Little brothers are a pain when big brothers start to date.  The awkward stage soon passes and big brother starts to take the little brother under his wing and teach him things.  And finally they reach a place where there is mutual respect and the life altering change begins.  Brothers become men.

But sometimes that cycle is interrupted, as now.  I recognize how hard it is for this big brother to stand helplessly by and watch as his little brother walks a path that only he can walk.  It is hard for all of us to stand at a bedside in utter helplessness.  So we do the one thing we can do.  We pray.  Our lives are currently in a state of meditation and Joey is at the center.  We know what we want, but we can not fix this.  I can't fix it.  Jason can not fix it.  Dona is completely helpless.  Everyone is.  So we pray.  We pray and all of our friends pray with us.  

Dear Heavenly Father, Only you know.  And you know what we are feeling.  Please make us strong as we pick up this cross.  Help our dear Joey in what ever way you choose.  You are all seeing, all knowing and omnipotent.  We ask only that you stand with us as we stand with our friends in prayer.  Not our will but thine be done.  With Joey in the palm of your hand, we surrender our will to you.  Amen

And with that I can only thank my friends, family, and everyone who stands by us in this hour of trial.  Know that we are all grateful for your prayers and we are still hoping for a miracle. 

I can fly a kite

Growing up in Nickerson was pretty much a challenge.  One of my favorite thing was to follow Jake and his buddy's down the highway and while they went up the creek to the swimming hole, I would dangle my pole in the water and with a little imagination, I could feel a fish bite.  Looking back I am not sure whether I was fishing in Cow Creek or Bull Creek, but either way there was nothing biting but maybe an old turtle.  Could have been a crawdad.  At the height of the spring floods it was probably only about 13 or 14 inches deep.  That was one thing you can still count on in Kansas, it will flood in the spring.  Several years back I took 96 Highway instead of 50 and wondered why I did that.  See, the towns are 7 miles apart because that was what the railroad required when it was building across the country.  Had to have a town every 7 miles so the train could get water.  People built the towns and then just never left them.  Never got any new blood either, so they just set there.
Jake was a great one for building kites.  His always had to be bigger and better than anyone else's.  That was back in the time when building a kite did not mean unwrapping the cellophane and taking it out of the package.  He was especially fond of the box kites and those took several days to complete.  The sticks had to be whittled and then glued and allowed to dry.  Then the tissue paper was placed, glued and that was allowed to dry.  Mother would choose a few colorful rags for the tail which had to be strategically placed.  Then the string was tied on and we were ready.  Jake always insisted on the very best kite string because, as Benjamin Franklin can tell you, there is a lot of strong currents up on the other end of that string tugging at the little kite.  If the string breaks, it is all lost.
Jake knew how to face into the wind, run and feed the string slowly so that the kite would do a little dance, then a small dive and then soar on an unseen breeze.   He would slowly feed it more string until it was very high in the air.  When it was settled he would let me hold the string, but he was always right there to make sure it stayed up and to tell me what to do to keep it steady.  How I loved to feel the pull of that kite!  It was just like a fish on the end of a line.  Ever been fishing?  If you have you know what I mean.
When it came time to bring it in, he would begin to pull it towards him and then quickly wind up the slack in the line.  Landing the kite was a definite art.  If he tried to do it too fast the string might break in which case the kite would soar away and crash to earth some where in a mass of broken sticks and paper.  But if he worked it just right he could bring it down and catch it by the tail and then hang it up to fly another day.  That was always a good feeling.  With Jake, I was a kite flying fool and he was always patient with me.  Not so good out on my own.
Mother gave me a little kite once and Jake helped me get the tail on it and get it up.  But since it was just a store bought thing, he quickly lost interest.  He left and I watched my kite sail higher and higher and then the unthinkable happened!  I lost hold of the string and watched in horror as my little kite sailed across the field toward the cemetery.  I ran as fast as I could, but there was no hope.  And then it stopped.  It stopped because the string was tangled in the top of a very big tree on the edge of the cemetery.  I watched as it dived around trying to get loose and finally in horror as it strained at the string and then spun around and crashed into the top of the tree in a broken mess.  I cried all that night at the loss of my kite.  Oh, the things kids remember.
Now, I have to tell you that many years later when we moved out here and Susie was 9 or 10, I got the urge to fly a kite again.  All these fields and no power lines was just more than I could stand.  So I bought a kite.  I assembled it and tied on the string.  Could not get it up.  Then I remembered about the tail.  So I tied a tail on it.  Still could not get it up.  I ran into the wind.  I ran with the wind.  I ran cross wise to the wind.  Susie very quickly lost interest.   I ran across a board which had a nail in it.  Of course of all the places in the world to step I had to step on that nail!  Kenneth was very understanding and loaded me up and took me to town for a tetanus shot!  He did explain that as tempting as the prospect of me having lock jaw was, the thought of not hearing my lovely voice was more than he could bear.  Sarcastic little shit!
Needless to say, my foot was very sore and when it was not sore any more the desire to fly a kite was gone.  Just wasn't the same without Jake to guide me.  It is fun to think about it and there is no way to describe how exhilarating it is to see your kite dancing across a blue sky, tugging at your hand and wanting you to come play.
There are many things I miss about my brother, but I think that when we were flying the kites we formed a bond that could never be broken.  Years later we would set out in the yard and listen to the Grand Old Opry from Nashville, Tennessee on WSM.  I credit him with instilling in me my love of country music.  These were things the other kids never shared with him.  When you grow up in the era I grew up in, friends were few and far between, but family was always there.  Of course, time would drive us apart, but until the day he died, he was my best friend and I will never see a kite that I will not think of him.
He died the day after Dona Marie's 1st birthday.  Sam was 26 days old.  Funny how time slips away.

The animals who moved with us.

Right out the back door and across the drive was a low shed.  The roof was rotten so nothing was kept in there.  Well the old cow made that her home.  She was pregnant and due at anytime when we moved in.  Seemed like we had not been there very long when she went into labor.  Things were not going well at all and the neighbor came to help.  Now, I swear this part is true.  It was decided she had "milk fever" and something had to be done.  Since there was no vet around for miles and had thier been one we would not have been able to afford him, another neighbor was brought in to advise.  His professional opinion, and he had one since he had already lost a cow to this, was that her tail must be cut open lengthwise and black pepper sprinkled in there and then taped back up.  Of course we were not allowed to watch such a gruesome sight, and I for one was very glad of that!  They decided as long as they were working on that end anyway, they might as well reach up in there and turn the calf because surely it was stuck.  I do not know to whom that task fell and I was once more glad that we were not allowed in the yard.
The calf finally made it out and was placed in the granary since it was a very sturdy place and the calf would stay dry.  Of course the cow died.  Do not ask if we butchered it and ate it, because I have no recollection of that, but I am sure if we had that much meat I would have remembered that.  I am sure she went to the glue factory.
I loved that little calf and named him Dennis.  Dennis was black as coal and had the biggest brown eyes.  I spent all my time with him trying to get him to eat so he would grow big.  Of course in a perfect world, that would have happened and he would have made us lots of money and been my friend forever, but we are in my world now.  Dennis lived three days and it broke my heart when I came home from school and found his lifeless body.  All these years later I still remember him.
Near the granary was the chicken pen.  I recall laying on my stomach and watching a chicken lay an egg.  Ever see that?  Fascinating!  The chickens were penned at night, but allowed to run free during the day.  They laid all thier eggs in the hen house so that was good.
My father also had horses.  They were work horses and he was one of the last farmers to give up the horses as work animals.  I remember the last "matched pair" he ever bought.  They were "Strawberry Roans" as I recall and I am sure that was thier color and not the breed.  They were big and a pinkish blonde color.  I remember dad braiding thier blonde tails and pulling them up into a "bob."
 As time passed the horses got older and died.  Star, the shetland pony, was the first to go.  Dead horse always was an exciting time at our house.  The "dead animal wagon"  was called and would come by hopefully before the horse began to "bloat".  The truck would back up close to the fence and the man would pull out the winch which was wrapped around the hapless animals neck.  Then he would start the winch and the animal was drug across whatever field it was in and winched up into the back of the truck.  Last time I saw old Star three of his feet were poking up over the side.
Now I know you are thinking how gruesome I am, but you must realize that back at that point in my life, it was reality.  Cold and stark reality, and there was no sugar coating any of it.  Death came to what ever and whomever and we lived with it.  We learned early on how to kill a rabbit or chicken and dress it out for dinner.  We also learned not to make pets out of our food.  That just made it harder to swallow around that lump  in our throat.
Jake's jobs were to chop wood and pump the horse tank full of water.  I think us little girl's job was to stay out of trouble.  There was a family at the end of street that watched the two little girls, Mary and Dorothy.  Donna sometimes went there because her and Mary were really tight.  Some times I liked to go there and play in thier dirt.  They had a son and daughter still at home. The daughter was a  year older then me, but I always thought her strange.  She collected comic books and baseball cards.  the son was Jake's age.  He delivered the newpaper which came out once a week.  The Nickerson Argosy, as I recall.  His name was Ralph, but we called him Hibbly.  Do not ask me why because I have no idea.  I do not think we called anyone by thier real name back then.
So the scene is fairly well set for my growing up years.  Today I am in the present and we have a yard sale at the church so I better get to it!

Laundry time at the new place.

Always before doing the laundry had consisted of scrubbing clothes on the scrub board, wringing them out by twisting them and then dropping them into a tub of rinse water where they were swished around by hand, wrung out again and dropped into another tub of water.  A final wringing and then they were placed on a wire "clothes line" to dry.  It was an all day job!  But when we moved in here we were surprised to find that it came with a washing machine.  As I recall it had a gas motor and sat in the kitchen.  The tank on the motor was probably coal oil.  Maybe kerosene.  Maybe gas. The motor caused the agitator to go back and forth, thus beating the clothes clean and eliminating the need for the scrub board.  Mother did, however, pre scrub the collars of the shirts on the scrub board.  We must have been very dirty little kids, especially our necks.
This new washer was great!  It even had a "wringer" which was two rollers and you turned a crank and placed and item of clothes between the rollers and the water ran back into the washer.  This was wonderful and made Mother's work so easy!  But alas!  It had been left there for a reason.  The second time the laundry was done the motor gave out and could not be repaired.  The rollers did not do a good job of wringing.

So, Mr. Reuben Floyd Bartholomew, land owner went into town and opened a charge account and purchased a brand new, never used, white  washing machine for his wife.  That was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen.  And it was electric!  It plugged into the one plug in that was in the kitchen.  (More about the wonders of electricity later!)  The best part was the stop lever on the wringer.  If you got your fingers in there by accident, you could smack the lever with your free hand and the wringers would stop and open allowing you to retrieve your appendage.  The alternative was to be pulled through the wringer and spit out in the rinse tub!  So wash day now became a joy!

Water would be heated in the 3 legged kettle out back with a wood fire and carried in by buckets to fill the washing machine.  Cold water was carried for the rinse tubs.  The final rinse always had a dab of "bluing" added so the white clothes had a hint of blue instead of the drab gray of the women who did not use bluing.  The first load of clothes washed was always "the whites". The whites were placed on the clothes line to dry and life continued.

 Oh, forgot to tell you the very first thing that happened was the bar of lye soap was grated into the water and agitated until it dissolved.  I must elaborate on how the lye soap came to be.
 When the lye soap supply started getting low, the first step was to clean the ash bin of the stove out and build a fire with a certain kind of wood.  The wood was important as it affected the color, smell, and texture of the soap.  This ash was saved for "soap making day".  On soap making day the 5 gallon bucket of grease we had been saving for this occasion was carefully heated and strained into another clean can.  Only the top was used as the bottom contained water and lord only knows what else.  This was placed on the back of the stove to be kept warm. Mother would place the ashes in a colander lined with several layers of cheese cloth. She then carefully dropped water into the ashes which ran through and was caught in a vessel of some sort underneath the sieve.  When she thought it looked "right" she would place a raw egg still in its shell in the mixture.  As I recall when all was right the egg would do something "proving" the lye.  When that happened there was a flurry in that kitchen like you would not believe!

The kettle of warm grease was set on the floor, someone poured the lye into the grease can while mother stirred frantically with a hammer handle reserved for this purpose only.  Depending on the strength of the lye, the heat of the grease and the humidity of the air the grease would start to "trace" means to  show marks of the hammer handle.  When the trace marks showed the concoction was poured into a wooden box that was lined with cloth.  If any part of the procedure was not perfect two things would happen.  If the mixture did not trace, then lye was off and the whole thing a waste and had to be thrown out.  If it traced to quickly it would set up on the way to the mold.  Usually the hammer handle would be trapped in the soap and could not be retrieved until the soap was all grated.  But if everything was perfect and the grease extra clean we would end up with white soap that actually lathered.  Back then a woman's worth was often connected to that bar of soap she produced, and to her credit, my mother rarely failed!

That scenario is what went through my mind when Chuck Vail gave me a gift certificate to Vitamin Cottage and I saw a book on soap making.  I figured if my mother could do it under the primitive conditions she did it under that I could surely turn out a bar to be proud of and that is what I have done.  Sadly nobody ever asks me what my soap looks like, but I think I will show you anyway.  The best part is what this does for my skin. See, this stuff is made with all natural ingredients so rather than plugging up my pores with petroleum distillates, it opens them and keeps my skin young.  I have a lot of repeat customers for this soap and my lotions.  Just goes to show, that no matter how things change, the more they remain the same.  When I first started making soap I could buy lye at the grocery store, but then the druggies learned how to use it and embalming fluid to make drugs and it is no longer available.  I have to order it online and I am limited how much I can buy and I have to certify that I am not a drug lord.

So while my mother made her own lye and used grease and it was a crap shoot what she would end up with, I have controlled conditions and it always comes out the same.  I use pretty molds and package it for eye appeal.  I keep thinking maybe one of my kids will take up the banner when I can no longer do this, but none of them are showing any interest.  Guess it is what is known as a dying art.  Much as my life has become!  When I take flight for the big homestead in the sky there will be a bunch of kids standing around shaking thier heads and wondering what to do with all the kettles, thermometers, molds, bags, fragrances, oils.  Ah!  An estate auction to die for!!

Cellar, outhouse and black widow spiders!

There was much to be done in our new home.  School would be starting soon and I had not yet explored every inch of the new home.  The house was simple.  Enter at the front door and you were in the "front room".  Later I learned the rich people called it the entry way, but to us it was the front room due to the very location.  It was also the "living room" because we lived there. To to the left of that was the front bedroom.  Made sense. Dad had a big bed in that room nearest the window so nothing could get us 4 kids that were piled on the bed.  Josephine, Donna, Mary and I slept in the other bed.  The center of the house consisted of the dining room and the "other bedroom" in which Mother slept with Dorothy because she was still a baby.  Sometimes Mary also slept in there.  I do not know where Jake slept.  He may have been hung from a hook.  The dining room held the big oak clawfoot table with mismatched chairs, the ironing board, a built in cupboard for our dishes, and a "icebox."    It also held a hanging bird cage in which lived a yellow canary.  That canary was my mother's reason for living, I think.  More about that later.
The room across the back of the house was designated as the kitchen.  It held two cook stoves, a set of shelves which would later become a bookself because we did have 3 or 4 books and they were on that shelf. The galvanized tubs were kept hanging from nails in this room, so it was also the laundry room.  One was a "wash boiler" because it was oblong and about a foot across and two feet long and 2 feet high.  If it happened to be raining on "wash" day, the water would be heated inside because we could not build a fire under the 3 legged kettle and wash day was wash day come hell or high water.  Days meant something back then!  I sell tea towels on ebay and they have the days with the little Sunbonnet Sue or the doggie doing things they do on the designated days.  Monday was "Wash Day", Tuesday "Iron", Wednesday "Sew", Thursday "Shop", Friday "Bake", Saturday "Clean" and Sunday was always "Church".  So if it rained and it was Monday, we would be heating wash water in the house.
There were also 2 more galvanized tubs that hung there.  They were the "rinse tubs".  When bath night came, which was always on a Saturday night without fail, the cleanest of the two tubs would be filled with warm water and we each got a turn in the tub.  First came the little kids and then the last was Dad.  Some times if the water got to thick, more water was added.  That was nice!  When we were all clean (and I use that word with the untmost sarcasm!) the tub was carried out the back door and dumped unceremoniously in the garden area.  Great fertilizer!
Along with the bathing ritual for our hygiene, there was also the need for rest room "facilities" and trust me, those were very primitive!  Out the back door and down the path stood the "outhouse".  And that, friends, is exactly what it was and what all the neighbors called it and everyone in town had one.  Course there were people in the city proper who had the inside things, but out on the outskirts where we lived it was a way of life.  It was a wooden building with a wooden bench built in and secured to the walls.  A hole was cut and that was it.  A Sears catalog was the paper used to "clean yourself "  when you were done "doing your business".  I hope you are getting a clear picture of where the black widow spiders came into this tale, because I have no intention of going into more detail than this.  Suffice it to say, I was terrified every time I went in there and I always carried a stick which I used to hit the hole with to scare the spiders away.  Apparently it worked because my vulnerable back side was never attacked.  I also lived in mortal terror that I would step inside and the floor would collapse and I would fall to a very nasty death.  I think this is the one aspect of pioneer life that I least enjoyed.  Never, ever did I even once wish I could go back to that nasty place!
Right out the back door was the area known as the "back porch" which I never understood why it was called that, but I guess it had a roof and screens to keep out flies.  Step out the door of the kitchen and on the left is where wood was piled.  On the right was the cellar.  The cellar was by definition the one place I did not ever want to go.  Never, ever, in my entire life did I actually enter the underground room.  I did make it part way down the dirt steps and looked at the room.  This cellar was dug down about 6 feet below ground level.  A roof of some sort was over the top and several feet of dirt mounded up over that.  I am sure that this would have stood an atomic bomb attack, but I was just not fond enough of living to go clear down the steps and enter that spider infested room.  Mother insisted on storing her pickles, canned goods, potatoes, yams, onions and such down there.  She would on occasion tell me to go down and bring up such and such.  If I could not get one of the other kids to do it, I went and hid until I was sure it was done.  I am scared shitless of spiders to this day and never have I ever thought a spider was my friend.  I am terrified of little spiders and the level of fear increased with the size of the spider.  Terror is the word we are looking for here.  Petrified comes to mind.  You get the picture?
Out of time again, but I will be back soon to share more with you of our new home.  Until then....