November 17, 2014

Memories Make a Home

"Picture perfect memories scattered all around the floor....." says the country song made popular in recent years by the group Lady Antebellum.  I thought I understood those words but not until recently did I truly get their meaning.

You see, in a lifetime there are a whole lot of memories that are gathered and collected, then tucked away neatly in a safe place.  Sometimes you take them out but mostly they are kept in place and not thought much about.

Until faced with them, that is.  The reality of it is, life sometimes presents changes that we just cannot avoid and when facing those circumstances, the memories come pouring out like a hundred-year flood.

Packing up my parent's belongings recently as they plan a move soon from their home of nearly thirty years to smaller apartment living has presented its share of memorable remembrances.  

Such as, I cannot help but remember the same place, exact day and year that I was in the position of unpacking all of these same things and putting them lovingly into place in the home they had just purchased and moved into.  It was so far from any home I remembered, but putting those well-known items into shelves and onto the walls just seemed to make that new environment their own.

And it did.

As the packing days went on, things continued to surface that I hadn't seen for too many years to even contemplate.  Memories.  We found the blueprints to the first (and only) house that they had built when I was but an infant.  That was the first and dearest home that I ever knew and to this day remains indelibly in my heart.

And mom presented me with a box of cards sent to me.  Birthday, Valentine's Day and other special events.  Letters written to me by my grandmother.  Letters I had written to my parents when I was away from them at camp.  She saved all of them all of these years.  Remarkable.

The rose-colored casserole dish that Mom always used to make my favorite hot dish (hamburger and noodles).  The yardstick that we measured our growth.  Stemware that held the first taste of wine on momentous Thanksgiving occasions when we were treated as adults and allowed a small sip of wine with our meal (though we still were seated at the kids' table, I might add).  

Scrapbooks filled with clippings of every sort, all lovingly preserved by our mother.  Files and folders filled with all manner of interesting memorabilia saved and carefully preserved by Dad for one reason or another.  Family history, legacies to be cherished.

These things all surfaced as we prepared for the move that would take them from their home to a new home.   

With them will travel many of these treasures as they settle into their new surroundings. But some of them will be passed on to us, their children, and cherished for our lifetime as well.   

Soon, though, the new place will be home once again, because a home is what you make it and what you put into it.  It is not a building, or a space or a memory.  Home is a place, anywhere, that you have around you in the space in which you live, the things that you love most.

So I will try to remember that as we leave behind a shell of an empty space that used to be home.  Because looking forward there will be a new home that will be filled with warmth, laughter and the occasional tear.  

But mostly, it will be filled with love and new memories.

November 10, 2014

Pet Ownership Can Be the Cat's Meow

Owning a pet can be a life altering experience indeed.  In taking on the care of an animal, one must commit to the good and bad, the ups and downs and the yin and yang so to speak.

Make no mistake, the benefits far outweigh the downsides, I'm here to attest.  But, just as there are wide arrays of colors of the rainbow and flavors of ice cream, so too are pet animals and their behavior.

Take, for example, my sister, who several years ago adopted a jet black feline friend whom she dubbed "Lacy".  Lacy was, once upon a time in her youth the kind of cat that would tolerate all manner of attention, graciously living up to her name.  

However, unlike fine wine, Lacy's capacity for decent social interaction diminished as the years unfolded.  She gradually took to lurking under furniture and staking out spots to be on the look out for any possible social intrusions to her peaceful existence.  

Once a confused visitor to their home remarked, after walking past the living room armoire, that something was leaking!  Turns out the disturbance was none other than Lacy who was exuding one of her menacing hissing growls at the innocent, unsuspecting passerby.

The other day, Lacy and her owner paid a visit to the veterinary office because the feline seemed to be suffering some sort of ailment.  Here's what happened, in her caregiver's words:

"Lacy was a terror and the vet never even got close to examining her.  We chased her around the room alternatively trying to throw a towel over her. Really, you would think a vet would have some tricks to retrieve her!  He gave her some pills to take twice a day, telling me that I could wrap them in a meaty 'treat' which of course Lacy won't like."

She went on to relate that Lacy was perfectly calm when returning home (of course), but when confronted with the nasty new food, she tried to bury it.  Go figure!!

As our pets age, their ailments often mirror those of their aging owners.  Mental confusion sometimes sets in as the days wane.  I once had a lovely Springer Spaniel named Annie who was beloved by all who knew her.  Annie never wandered past her yard and lived a long, lovely existence.   

As she reached the end of her life she began to wander into neighboring garages and even tried to visit the day care center at the church across the street.  She became confused and unsure in her old age yet still remained a much loved and cherished pet.  But alas, Annie one day disappeared and was never found.  I contend that wonderful dog did that to spare her owners the agony of saying "good-bye".  

Such a wise dog she was and I still mourn her loss and the fact that I never got to be with her as she took her final breath.  

Another of my sisters and her husband, after losing their beloved "Dukie", a sheep herding dog, found miraculously a younger, nearly identical version of their pet and dubbed him "Little Dukie".  

Little Dukie is a charming, energetic dog, with perky ears and a friendly demeanor.  As his breed often does, Dukie naturally tends to herd anything in sight, so when he is allowed out of doors in the yard, there is a good deal of running in circles involved.

The other day, says my sister, Dukie got a bit out of hand and ram-rodded Fritzie, the couple's aged other dog who was innocently taking in the fresh out-of-door weather.  Here's what happened:

"Today Dukie was running around playing outside and he was going full tilt and ran right in to poor Fritzie who was tooling along like an Edsel when the Dukie turbo-charged 'Vette broadsided him.  I felt so sorry for Fritzie that I ran to him and put my arms around him and hung on to him after righting him back up."

 It's not easy getting older and our animals rely on us for pretty much everything in their tiny worlds.  All I can say is bless the pet owners who have only the best intentions for their beloved animals in mind when they take on the responsibility of pet ownership.  

Signing on as a pet owner means there will be those kind of good byes again and again.  Believe me, though you might think these animals are the only ones reaping the benefits, it is we the pet owners who come out on top every time.

November 3, 2014

Holiday Antics Come Naturally to Us

Well another Halloween has come and gone, and with minimal pumpkin smashing and fire starting.  Kudos to those who might be tempted to ruin one of the best nights of the year with those senseless pranks.  

I, as usual, enjoyed a little harmless revelry on that night of nights.  Let's just say that the darling, daring little kiddos trick or treating my house got a little surprise when a lady with pink, flashy hair answered their beckoning door bell.  The way I see it, I was just instilling on their little psyches the important fact that one can never be too old to cut loose and enjoy such an enchanting night as All Hallow's Eve.

October 31 antics have always been a part of my life.  This was instilled upon me and my siblings by our dad, who led the parade when it came to enjoying the holiday.  Drawing from some of the harmless little pranks that he learned as a youngster, Dad taught his willing subjects the finer points of haunting at Halloween.

Sometimes that meant dressing in an oversized men's coat pulled over our head ala the Headless Horseman, and sitting in wait for the unsuspecting candy seekers to enter our domain.  I'm sure more than one fled in terror without even gathering a treat from the door.  Dad also taught us the art of haunting our favorite neighbor's house by rigging an invisible thread to open pull open their door, or running empty wooden thread spools across their window to create  eerie noises.  All of these tricks took days to perfect, which is half the fun when planning a haunt.

Of course there were the costumes and every year we'd either dig through the dress up trunk in search of hobo duds or gypsy garb or ghostly get ups.  One year we devised clever costumes using old white pillow cases on which we drew  exaggerated faces.  These were then placed over the head and when you held up your arms, they presented a garish spectacle.  

A favorite go-to costume of course was the witch, for which we'd always don one of our grandmother's old black dresses and a stiff, plastic mask that was held on by an elastic band around ones head.  Simple, yet very effective, I guarantee that much.

I'll admit that sometimes there was toilet papering involved, but of course that was without dad's consent.  I'm sure he would never condone such antics and mom wouldn't allow for the waste of perfectly good tp.  In fact, there were times when our family was the recipient of the decoration and our mom actually saved some of the better, usable portions of the paper.  Okay, maybe this is just myth but I seem to remember this happening on more than one occasion.

So, my generation comes by the enjoyment of the holiday naturally.  Brother always delves into it wholeheartedly and this year constructed a giant spider in his garage and placed it atop the roof.  I will have to say that just seeing the photographs actually gave me shivers and recollections of the B-movie thrillers where giant arachnids take over the world one house at a time came to mind.  

This year I rigged a battery powered, motion activated ghost on my front porch.  I'm sure it harmlessly entertained the youngsters who visited my front door with it's ghostly howl and movement to and fro.  

But flash forward a few hours later when the lights had gone dark and all were safely tucked into bed.  

Outside my window I heard an otherworldly moaning on my front lawn.  I awoke with a start and despite the warmth of the covers I was under, actually felt a spine shuddering fear.  Could it be......a ghoul outside that was intent on tricking me, the trickster herself?!  

As I lay there I wondered if I'd ever be able to return to my sound slumber.  But just as I was slipping back to sleep another ghastly moan started up......and it was then that I remembered that I hadn't turned off the little ghostly apparition that I had hung on the porch to entertain my trick or treaters earlier that night.

Yes, that's right.  I guess you can say I tricked myself into a good, healthy scare.   And after all these years, I suppose it was high time.

October 27, 2014

Water, Water Everywhere…

Being a true county in the state of Minnesota, the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”, Murray is the home to a number of waterways scattered throughout its borders. Granted, one might consider some of these mere watering holes, but nevertheless, they are legitimate lakes in the eyes of cartographers everywhere.  And best of all, at least we haven’t got the distinction of being the one and only county in the state without a lake (right, southeastern Minnesota?)  We’ve even got rivers crisscrossing our county lines as well.

Now I’m probably pushing the county line limits on a couple of these (and I’ll take corrections graciously) but I count at least a dozen lakes in our fair county today.  I also know there are countless other little water spots and I’d love to know about those as well.  But the most known lakes around here include the following:  Big Slough, Lake Shetek, Lake Mariah, Blood Lake, Summit Lake, Lake Sarah, Lake Wilson, Current Lake, Iron Lake, Corabelle Lake and Badger Lake.

Once, there was an erstwhile lake in Slayton named Elsie, and she graced the southeast section of town.  Well Elsie was drained in favor of farming land, which never really paid off as for some reason, the land always tended to revert to wet lands. So, rather than fight the force of nature, Elsie was encouraged a few years ago to arise from the dead and become yet another county lake (or wetland, as the case might be on drier, rainless years). 

So let’s see, that would make 13 official lakes in the county.  And that’s not even taking into consideration the countless other water ways that go unnamed on the official maps.

But what of plans back in 1974 to develop an artificial lake in the Chanarambie valley, three miles west of Chandler.  Perhaps this phantom lake does exist and if so I need to go on a hunt for it one of these days.

The lake was to be created on land donated by the Post brothers, Sankey brothers and Arlo Gilbertson and developed jointly by these folks in cooperation with the ASCS, the Soil Conservation Service, and Moulton Township.

When completed, the lake was to be about nine acres in size and average between 20 and 30 feet deep at the dam.  It was also to be stocked and have a parking area for fisherman.  Eventually, planners schemed, a park could be developed there as well.  Cost estimates for the project was set at $35,000.  Now that’s no little watering hole in my estimates.

So, was the lake ever developed?   How about the park and the adjacent parking lot?  I’d love to know more. Because this unnamed lake would have become number 14 in Murray County.   

And that’s not too bad for this southwest Minnesota prairie land county.