The rope and leaf are from Scrapgirls.

 

Not all of my brother  Bill’s wonderful ideas turned out quite the way he planned. The day we met the skunk I did exactly as he told me to but the skunk must not have listened. It decided not to turn and run from him toward me. While I stood quietly waiting for the big event, the skunk planned and executed her own strategy. She stood her ground and showered Bill with a spray of horrible scent. Bill screamed and started running the half mile toward the house. By the time I caught up with him Mom had Bill in a galvanized bathtub in the middle of the yard and instructed me to get tomato juice from the cellar STAT! After a dozen or more jars of juice were scrubbed over his body he did smell better, BUT for several days he still did not smell human.

Boy was he mad at me. I guess it is easier to be angry at your little sister than a skunk...

Niobrara River Experience

The summer of 2008 I spent five weeks out at the ranch getting the house emptied, sorting through over a hundred forty years of family archives, trash, and other interesting things. Labor Day weekend the rest of the family joined me. Kelby said that he had never been down to the river to swim and since this was the last time he would be there let’s all take a break and go swimming. Hayden and Austin loved it. Tam and I sat on the bank and enjoyed the kids while Kelby and Lester waded and kept watch over the boys. Terrill, Kelby’s dog was crazy about the water but Maxwell, my little schnauzer was very frightened. He jumped out and ran through the sandburs. Then he was in worse shape, POOR THING! That was just the beginning. When the men went to leave they had a flat tire and could not get the tire off. I went eight miles back to the ranch for better tools. When I arrived back at the river they had the tire off and were in route to the closest gas station, twelve mile away.


The tire could not be fixed. We ended up having to buy two new tires. So much for a break from our labor...

The digital leaf design on right hand side  behind the building is from Scrapgirls.

TinyTown USA

My childhood home was a small cattle ranch in the Nebraska sandhills. Our closes neighbors were the residents of Eli a tiny town two miles through the hills on the original US Highway 20 a washboard gravel road or four miles around on paved US Highway 20. In Eli there were two general stores. One sold cattle feed and other needs for our animals. The other store was the grocery store, the post office, gas station, and telephone switch board. Along that same sandy street was the community hall used for dances, funerals, wedding receptions, and elections. At the end of that street was the parsonage. There was another street that ran at a right angle to the business street and another that ran parallel. The church was on the parallel street. Across the street from the stores was a large two story unkempt building that once housed my Uncle Frank’s hardware store and gas station. The back of that build and the second story was their home. When I was quite young there were four or five other homes along those three streets and down the quarter mile gravel road to the two-roomed school house. There was one more group of buildings about 1/8 mile north there was a train depot, remains of a lumber yard, and stockyards for shipping cattle out on the Union Pacific train.

Sometimes I tend to grow tired of the same routine, so instead of letting it become a tedious responsibility I look for beauty. This picture is of dried up foliage but it is beautiful against the field of snow along the much traveled road to the airport.

Some Memories Bring a Giggle

Memories
These glasses reminded me of my Dad. His ophthalmologist told him that wearing BIG dark sunglasses whenever he went outside would prevent cataracts and glaucoma.
One time when he was visiting us he happened to get into a different car than Mom. She insisted that he had to have his glasses. So we tried to get to a place to stop. We could not find one so we decided to toss the glasses from one car to another at a stop light. We missed getting beside the other vehicle several times. Finally, I opened the window and tossed his glasses to the other driver. They flew nicely toward the drivers hands. He missed! There on the street were my Dad's glasses smashed into a thousand pieces...

Digital Scrapbooking Supplies:
Scrapgirls

I took a vacation in Greenbelt, Maryland the first week in February. I spent four days down in Washington D.C. BUT then it snow! I was lucky enough to fly home before the next storm hit.