MOONSCAPES

January is a loooong month! I think I am ready for some SPRING. The problem is there is still quite a bit of winter left. We took a little break yesterday from the cold and went to the RV Show at the Ft Wayne Coliseum. We had a nice time looking at the new offerings and dreaming about our upcoming trip to the Grand Canyon and southern Utah in April. I am ready to leave now but we have a few things to do before we go. I have to get a carrier built for the back of the camper to carry our generator because a lot of the campsites out there have no hookups. I think we will be ok as far as the air conditioner because it probably won't get that hot in April. It may get quite cold at night however and the furnace needs 12 volt to operate the fan. The batteries will last overnight but for extended periods they need to be recharged so we need the generator.

The interesting item above is a wooden(cherry) old style washing machine replica. One of my long time customers made it and gave it to Marcia. He did a really nice job! We are thinking about taking it on our trip to wash our clothes but I am not sure the agitator would work good enough to get the clothes clean. Oh well it was a thought.


We have had a beautiful moon the last couple of nights so I just had to get some pictures. The above is out by the garage shooting between the two walnut trees. I was trying to get the smoke from the furnace, which was rising straigt up just to the right, but it only shows as a little fuzzy area in the picture.

The next two are just a couple of different shots that I thought were interesting. I hope you enjoyed them.

Just a short update. Matt's wife Seri is just completing her degree from Michigan Tech and will be moving to Toronto soon to start a post doc at the University of Toronto. Matt is still in northern Minnesota so it will be a long cold winter for both of them.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. And to Matt, Happy Birthday! We had most of the family home for Christmas except for Matt & Seri who were greatly missed. They are in northern Minnesota and it was just too far to make the trip for a short visit. Matt did not get much time off for Christmas so he did not have time to do any travelling. Jennifer, Brian, Cole, Quinn and Alyssa were here and we had a great time. The boys needed to get outside so they decided to look for the kitties.

They found the kitties and at least Sophie let them pet her. The others all disappeared rapidly. Then they decided to go up in the hay mow. I think they were going to put some hay down for Timmie but the bales were more fun to just play on.

Back in the house the boys found Grandpa's jiggle chair(that's what Cole calls it). They had quite a time playing in that chair.

Probably the biggest hit of Christmas was the UNO game. Cole loved to play this game and would challenge anyone and everyone. He even beat Uncle Bill who claimed never to have been beaten. Everybody had a good time with the UNO.

Alyssa wanted to conserve energy so she got a heating pad for a present. I guess she will save on the heat bill by having zone heat placed appropriately.

Here are the proud Grandma and Grandpa.

We really enjoyed the Holidays with the family. We hope everyone had a good Holiday season. Here's wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2010.

Christmas Lights

First I want to tell you all about our Amish meal. Friday night we went with several couples to an Amish or perhaps a Mennonite home over south of Shipshewana. They host dinners in their home for groups of eight or more. There were twelve in our group and another group of about twenty four in the the very large basement of this house. The owners welcomed us and started passing around very large bowls of food. There was a salad, corn, mashed potatoes & gravy, chicken, salisbury steak, beef & noodles, delicious bread with raspberry-rhubarb jelly(absolutely yummy), jello type salad and fresh baked pies. I was very proud of myself and took reasonable helpings and when we had finished the first go around with the main courses they started them around again! We will start counting calories after the holidays. The food was all excellent, home grown and cooked to perfection. We had a very nice evening and are ready to go again.

Since the title is Christmas lights I guess I better tell a little about them. The above is the moon shining between a couple of walnut trees in our yard. That's quite a light.

Next are Mom's lights by the back door. They are shot with a long exposure so they give kind of a neat look to the lights.

This is from the road in front of the house showing Mom's lighted trees on the front porch and the lights shining in the windows showing everyone the way home.

Here is another shot of the trees on the front porch and two of the candles in the windows. Of course all of this would not have been possible without the Bota. We went for a night ride and took these while on our ride.

Actually all of the credit goes to Marcia. She loves to decorate for the Holidays and spent hours and hours working on all of the decorations.

Quinn's 2nd Birthday

Happy # 2 Quinn

As the title implies this is all about Quinn turning two. Last Saturday we went to Noblesville for the big day. Quinn was in fine form as were all of the kids. Quinn's cousins where there as well as older brother Cole. Above is a shot of Quinn blowing out his candles.

After blowing out the candles Quinn was trying to decide what to do next.

I guess he decided the figures were more interesting than the cake!

Here he is checking out one of his presents. This one was from Aunt Awwyssa.

I'm not sure but he seems to like it. It was a great day and everyone really enjoyed spending time together with the kids.

Family update:

My knees are doing much better. That is a good thing because the Holiday rush has kept me busy in the shop. Plus we are excited to be planning a trip to the 4 corners area of the Southwest in the spring.

Marcia is enjoying retirement but does not quite have it figured out. She has been substituting at the High School for a friend and observing student teachers for Trine(Tri-State) University's education dept. She is also busy planning our family Thanksgiving and the Powers Church Christmas Service to be held Sunday, November 29(also Grandma Powers birthday).

Jennifer & Brian are busy with the two boys. Brian is still working for Simon Group in downtown Indy. Recently he took Cole to a Pacers game which they both enjoyed. Jennifer is still busy working two days a week for First Steps and keeping up with the two little tornadoes.

Alyssa is still at IU finishing a very busy semester grading student papers and attending classes that require a lot of time(ie. statistics). One of her class projects involves making observations about her Great-Great-Great-Great-Uncle Calvin Powers based on letters he wrote in the 1830's.

Matt is living in northern Minnesota doing research for the Forest Service. He is adjusting to a new apartment, new job, new area and working for the government. He is looking forward to exploring the area especially up near the Boundary Waters. Seri is finishing her degree at Michigan Tech in Houghton and will be done in the spring. She is currently finishing a two week school sponsored research project in Hawaii. It sounds like good work if you can get it. She will be home to spend Thanksgiving with Matt.

We have a lot to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving!

Halloween & Conner Prairie

With Halloween coming and fall rapidly turning to winter we decided to make one more trip in the camper. We went to Cicero Indiana to White River Campground. We did not know until we got there that it is a Hamilton County Parks and Recreation Campground. They have a lot of acreage right along the White River with walking trails and equestrian trails with plans for a great deal of future development. They have several hundred acres to work with and from the looks of their early projects it will be a very impressive park. The best thing about the park is that it is only about ten miles from Brian and Jennifer's house.

The real reason we went was to take Cole & Quinn's pumpkins to them. We had been growing them in the garden all summer. Saturday evening was pumpkin carving night and the boys were all excited. Mom & Dad joined right in and we had a good time watching the boys with their pumpkins. They were not sure about the gooey insides but they plunged right in and helped clean them out.

Above is Cole with Mom working on his pumpkin. They did a great job of outlining their faces and then carving them into the pumpkins. Cole's had such a thick shell that it took a lot of effort to carve out the design. Below are Cole and Mom working on his pumpkin and Dad working on Quinn's. Brian carved a very intricate design and worked diligently to get it finished.

Quinn was helping out big time also. He wanted to be doing everything that big brother was so he got a scraper and went to work on his pumpkin. With a little(lots) of help he got it done.

Sunday we went to Conner Prairie, which is a historic settlement with museum and recreated communities based on the 1830's time frame. It has a couple of recreated communities with most of the buildings being authentic and moved to the site from other locations. They came from all around the area, one even came from Steuben County.

We had a great time and the weather was beautiful. The leaves were turning and the buildings mostly had fires going in their fireplaces. It was just a beautiful fall day. The boys had a great time exploring all of the buildings and especially the animals. In the above picture Cole, Grandma and Aunt Alyssa are checking out the pig pen. They had an old bank barn with an assortment of animals running around, or in some cases laying around. Quinn was fascinated with the animals he would go up to each one and try to pet it. I think there may be some farmboy in that young man.

Weddings and wood cutting

We got to see Matt and Seri again a few weeks ago when Ryan Frey, a friend of Matt's, got married in Fort Wayne. It was a whirlwind trip for Matt and Seri (two days out of four spent in travel time), but we had a great time visiting with them and attending Ryan's wedding. Matt was best man, so we enjoyed talking with Seri while Matt was involved in best man duties. We did have the opportunity to take these pictures of Matt with the groom and with Seri.

Back on the farm, it's time to cut wood! We know that winter is coming because we had our first snow on Friday. It didn't stick, but we had enough to make the ground white for a little while. The pictures below show Dewey after we have loaded the Kubota. We have found that the Bota is a work horse when we get to the woods and is much more maneuverable than a tractor and wagon. With Dewey cutting and Marcia loading, we can have this much wood in a half an hour. We also reminisce about times in the woods with the family when the kids had assembly line wood loading. Remember that Jennifer, Alyssa, and Matt? I bet you wish you we here helping now!

Kids & Pumpkins

Holy Halloween! Cole whose pumpkin do you suppose this one is? I think it has your name on it just waiting for Halloween. I am sure you will be able to carve a great face on this pumpkin. I hope it is not too scary.

Oh here is another one, who do you suppose this one is for? We also have some small ones for pumpkin pie. We are looking forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks.

This is from earlier when the kids were visiting. Grandpa and Cole working hard with the Bota. We sure had a good time in the Bota didn't we Cole?

This of course is Quinn and Grandma. I'm not sure what the look is for but you never have to wander long with Quinn. He will let you know real quick what he is thinking.

We are trying to get caught up with chores around the farm, but it seems they are never ending. With the head of grounds and maintenance hard at work on her new job there seem to be a lot of things that need attention. She did manage to get the depot scraped and painted in between the showers. It looks great but now she is talking about the barn, maybe next year. We started moving things around to get ready for winter. We try to put more things inside during the winter but it always is a chore getting them to fit.

Not much else to report so will sign off now.