He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

I don’t write much about my brother, perhaps because I never thought there was much to say.  He’s sixteen years older than I am, so he wasn’t much of a part of my childhood. When I was in middle school and high school, he lived at home in a room above the garage for a while, but I only ever saw him at supper-time.

For many years now, I’ve only seen him a few times a year and talked to him on the phone only a few times more. Since Mom passed away in February, our contact has been much more frequent. This past Sunday, we spent the day together at a niece’s family picnic. He shared some stories from his youth that I have never heard. I’m sure he has a lot more to say, and maybe I need to make the effort to hear them.

In honor of his birthday today, I’m sharing some of the old pictures of him that I found in Mom’s stuff. Lucky for me, he doesn’t have internet, so if you know him and run into him this week, don’t tell him I posted this. But you can wish him a happy birthday.  

Happy birthday, you dashing older man.

Graduation Day 2017

Today is high school graduation here in my hometown. I haven’t been to graduation since my second-born graduated in 2008. I’d be proud to call the girl graduating today my daughter, but instead I just got to borrow her a few times a month over the last seven years. I wish her the very best and I hope she knows that I will always be there for her. 

2011 July - my backyard 

 2011 September - at Timm's Hill

2012 August - my backyard 

 2012 September - at Kelly Arms Castle  

 2013 May - Colton Dixon concert in Milwaukee

 2013 October - Bowling

 2014 August - Chism Ranch for our yearly horseback ride

 

 2014 December - Christmas!

2015 December - Another Christmas

 2016 February - modeling her new outfit in Petsmart 

 2016 April - going to Prom

 2017 May - with her art at the Senior Art Show

Ciaara, I'm so proud of you. Remember, you can do anything you put your mind to.

(It only takes an hour a week or four hours a month to change the life of a child and change your own life as well. Get involved. No matter where you live. http://kinshipinc.org/affiliate-network/ or http://www.mentoring.org/ )

This Time of Year

When I was growing up, every year in May, Mom went on a rhubarb cake frenzy. Her sister, her boss, several friends and even herself all had birthdays in May. A friend of hers, who raised corn and gladiolas (probably other stuff, but those are the things I remember), also grew rhubarb plants. So every May, she would fork over paper grocery bags full of rhubarb, which Mom baked into nontraditional birthday cakes for everyone she knew.

At the time, I didn’t like rhubarb cake. I didn’t like raisins, walnuts, or oatmeal either. I still can’t tolerate a bowl of cooked oatmeal – it’s like eating phlegm – but at least I’ll eat me some oatmeal cookies now. I’ve expanded my tastes and textures (except when it comes to phlegm), so have grown fond of rhubarb cake.

Here’s Ma’s recipe, as I copied it from her hand-written index card.

Rhubarb Cake

1/3 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 egg

¾ cup milk

1 2/3 cup flour

Salt

1 tsp soda

2 cups raw rhubarb

Mix as for cake. Put in 9 x 12 pan

Topping

½ cup white sugar

½ cup brown sugar

Cinnamon

½ cup chopped nuts

Pat on topping. Bake 350 for 40 minutes

 

 For those of you who want exact measures, I use ½ teaspoon salt. Mom had an old yellow coffee cup with a broken handle that she kept on her stove filled with salt. Whenever she was cooking or baking, she’d dip a kitchen spoon in the salt and add a random amount to whatever she was making. It always worked. And the cinnamon? At least a teaspoon, coz you can’t have too much cinnamon. Also, the pan needs to be greased. I also cut back on the brown and white sugar in the topping to a third cup. It’s good with more, but messy coz it’s too thick to bake into the cake.

 

One last thought on rhubarb cake. When we were camping one time, Mom took a rhubarb cake along to eat. She stored it in the camper’s oven when we were traveling, but forgot it when we got home. A couple weeks later, looking for that metal cake pan, she remembered where she’d left it. I don’t remember what was left of the cake as being a moldy, dried up mess. What I do remember though, after we scraped it out, was that the acid from the rhubarb had eaten holes in the metal pan. Just a word to the wise. 

A Ride with my two Besties

I’ve really enjoyed sharing my pictures from my recent trip to Africa, but as promised, I will start sprinkling in other adventures. I’m not done with Kenya, though, so stay tuned if you aren’t completely bored with it yet.

Earlier this year, as I was beginning to make our summer camping plans, I found out that the state park that we always go to in the UP had a significant amount of damage over the winter. Lake Superior eroded away so much of the shoreline that they lost part of the road and there was damage to the water lines to the restrooms. They didn’t know how much of the campground would be open for the summer or what services would be available. With heavy hearts, Hubby and I decided maybe we should try a different place this summer.

 The last weekend in April, we took a ride west of here to check out a few places.

Of course, we made a lot of stops along the way. The first was the historic stone bridge in Spirit.

 Next we stopped at the church in Ogema, just because they had a rummage sale. We surely don’t need any more rummage at our house, but couldn’t pass up the baked goods.

  The South Fork of the Jump River at Copper Dam campsite. I bet the water is even higher now. The campsite, however, was a little too rustic for us.

 At Lions Memorial Park on the Chequamegon Waters Flowage. 

 My handsome Dino. 

 Chippewa Campground near Hannibal in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Still rustic, but I think it could work for us. At least the campsites were large.

 The Chippewa River near Jim Falls.

 The only picture I took at Lake Wissota State Park in Chippewa Falls. I must have just been tired by then. Or else…

What are we remembering?

Hope you are having a good Memorial Day weekend. Memorial Day means different things to different people. 

Our younger generation probably doesn’t think too much about what it means. They’ve not lost a loved one in a war in a foreign country, or if they have, they don’t appreciate why that is significant.  The older generation remembers Vietnam and Korea. Much of our population who lived through World War II have passed away. World War I is now only in the history books.

 The Middle East conflict? I wish I could say that I understand that, but I do know that we have lost a lot of good people there.

 Looking through our old family pictures, I came across this one. Supposedly it is of my father’s father. It would have been taken before my father was born in 1915 in Germany. If the man in this picture had been called to duty to fight in a war, it would have been World War I and he would have been fighting for the Germans. Against the United States. 

 Does that make him a bad man? Does that make him an enemy? He would have been fighting for his country, whether he believed in what he was fighting for or not. He would have been fighting for the only thing he knew.

 But in the end, if this is indeed my grandfather, he came to America in 1923, with his oldest son.

 The following year, this woman, my grandmother followed him here.

 Along with four of her children, Paul, Frank, Klara and Emmy. That would be my father on the far left. 

Moral of this story, whatever you remember today, remember family and the good stuff. 

Faces of Faith

 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30 (New International Version)

One more round of pictures of the kids at Southern Cross Academy. As heavy as the burdens are that many of them carry, they still manage to smile and laugh.

May God lighten their loads. 

I may have shared some of these already, but it’s surprising that I don’t remember seeing some of them before, even though I took them all.

Very soon we will start planning our next project in Kenya. You can donate to our work there at any time by clicking this link. Or mail your check to Tumaini Volunteers, Inc., PO Box 726, Wausau, WI  54402. Thanks for your support.