What's that in the dryer?

meteorites?  rocks?  bubble gum?

Our dryer developed a nasty squeak over the last month.  At first it was only at the beginning of the cycle, until it got warmed up.  But gradually the squeak time lasted longer.  And louder.  Until finally this last week or so it was driving us batty.

So Joe decided it was time to take things into his own hands and see what he could see.

"You come, too, please.  I want to show you what's inside there so when I'm dead and gone you will be able to fix it yourself." 

"Hmmm."

I took my computer down with me, so that Joe would have handy access to various youtube videos and exploded view diagrams of the dryer innards.

But we were stymied right away.  Neither of us could remember how to get the top off.  We undid the screws on the back.  Joe thought the next step was the top, but how?  I thought the next step was the front, but how?  And at first glance the internet was not very forthcoming with the information we needed.  So I got back to my crochet and Joe did a little more searching. 

Joe was right.  The next step was the top.  When he had that off, he called me down.

"Can you bring the vacuum down here and clean this lint out for me?"

Joe saw right away at least one problem.  One of the plastic electrical connectors had melted at some point.  Yikes!  A striking proof of the providential protection of our Heavenly Father.

melted electrical connection

Joe went back to his pastor work while I cleaned out the lint.  It was indeed quite linty.  I found that reaching in and grabbing the handfuls worked better than the vacuum at first.

After I was done, I returned to my crochet.  Joe came back down to remove the front panel.

"Can you come down and get the next section cleaned out?"

Joe went back to his pastor work while I cleaned out more lint.  Handfuls and handfuls.  Some of it nicely felted.  Some of it simply thick pillows.

After I was done, I returned to my crochet.  Joe came down and took the drum out.

"Can you come down and get the next area cleaned out?"

I once again went downstairs and cleaned out lint.  This part was also a bit worrisome, since there was a thick layer of toasted lint on the back of the drum.  Another striking proof of the providential protection of our Heavenly Father.

When I was done with this, Joe came back down.  I did not return to my crochet, but stayed with Joe so that he could teach me all he knew about how this contraption works.  Then we took the drum itself apart to get the lint from all the nooks and crannies there.  We also took the little paddle things our of the inside of the drum, to clean inside of them.

All in all, we came up with about a dollar in change, a couple of foam ear plugs, several bobby pins, some candy wrappers, rubber bands, and a few other small gizmos.

And lots and lots of lint.  This photo is the big chunks that didn't get sucked into the vacuum.  It's hard to tell in this photo, but it fills a plastic grocery bag pretty much all the way.  Notice the toasted lint on top?  That's the part that was between the drum and the heating coil.

lovely bag full of dryer lint, including some nicely toasted

Joe put some grease on the bearing and the felt strip around the edge of the drum. 

He checked online to see about the melted electrical connection pieces and decided there was no place in town that would be likely to stock that variety.  But he's pretty good with electrical know-how, so he figured out a way to fix it without having to order anything.  But his wire cutter tool seems to have wandered off.  After making a few phone calls, Joe found one at Ryan N.'s.  He sent me over to get it while he returned to his pastor work. 

When I returned with the wire cutter, Joe said, "You come, too, please.  I want to show you how to do it so when I'm dead and gone you will be able to fix it yourself." 

Joe clipped melted pieces off, and stripped a scant half inch of plastic off the wires.  This part was a little tricky, since the plastic insulation near the melted connectors had also melted, and was stuck into the bundled copper wires underneath it.  But with some finagling, Joe worked them off.  Then he used one of those handy-dandy twisty cap things and put the wires back together without the plastic connector pieces.  He showed me how to do one wire at a time, so as to avoid reconnecting them wrongly.  He even let me twist one of them together.  But I did notice he kind of tugged on it after I was done to make sure it was going to stay.  I didn't notice him doing that to the one he twisted.

Then we put the dryer back together:  baring, drum, belt, front, top.  And we started it up. 

And still, it squeaked. 

Time to order some parts.  Joe found new bearing pieces online for about $35.  He thought the heating element looked kind of sketchy and that could be ordered for $90. 

That was getting close to the amount that causes one to ask if the repair is too costly.  We have a ten year old dryer.  A ten year old dryer originally estimated to last seven years.  And a ten year old dryer originally estimated to last seven years for an average sized family. 

And were there other parts that warranted replacing, too?  

Joe decided on soliciting a second opinion from Kyle  N. 

Good news!  Kyle thought every looked fine except the bearing.  Even the heating element.  Kyle is a tinkerer.  He knows such things.  What great news!  A striking proof of the provision of our Heavenly Father.

The most interesting things we pulled out of the dryer came from inside the paddle or fin things inside the drum.

The action of constant spinning combined with the shape of the inside of the fins seems to be conducive to creating unusual spheres of lint.   Mostly spheres, but also some other fun shapes. 

dryer detritus

in order of size 

Summer jobs, and A Drive with a View

And then the end, my only friend, the end...  Just a little "I rambled on too long, AGAIN,"  joke.  Here's the latest Abrahamson, Northern Minnesota news over at the US Marine Grad Project blog.  I did ramble, but I really had fun writing it.  Didn't get much VBS written, but, ... well, maybe I needed this to clear my brain and refuel.

Mystery Solved! Val Hall, Rocksbury Township, Pennington County, MN

Thanks to several readers, especially Diane L, I now know where to find the mysterious and elusive community of which I wrote earlier today.  The images are screen shots courtesy of Google maps.

The green arrow is pointing just north of Val Hall

Here we are again, closer in.  Val Hall is the building on the left.  The house on the right is the one I remember having such a lovely setting.

The Townhall of Rocksbury Township is apparently called Val Hall.  I will have to drive there again, now that I know where to find it.  Turns out I only missed it by a mile.

In Search of Vahalla, or a Springtime Jaunt

I had a lovely trip into TRF last night to deposit Joe's paycheck.  The weather was perfect.  The music on the radio was a good fit for my mood.  I took the backroads.  Pure fun.  But I have to tell you, I was feeling just a smidgeon nervous by the time I got home.  I like to think I'm brave.  But it's sometimes easy to confuse brave with foolhardy.  Especially in the spring.

Here's how it happened.

I was looking for this little place I found once out in the country between Pennington/140th Ave, and US59; and Center Street and TRF.  It was a cute little township hall or school house or something, with several other farm sites on the adjacent land.  I think it was called something like Valhalla, but I'm not sure.  It's almost as if it was some time warp thing I slid into.  Another dimension or something.  I've never been able to find that spot again, and it doesn't show up on any county maps or township lists or anything.

The only thing I remember from that accidental find is that I had been on 59, going north, behind some sort of slow moving vehicle, with oncoming traffic or poor visibility or something that deterred me from passing.  So I turned off instead.  And discovered this cute little place.  And have never seen it since. 

The parameters I've described do not mark a very big area.  Maybe six or seven miles long and, because 59 goes at a diagonal, the width starts at about five miles wide and tapers to a triangle at TRF.  So really, really, with the pretty much perfectly square mile roads in this part of Minnesota, there are not that many places it could have been.  It's as if Valhalla was never really there. 

So last night, on an unplanned trip into town, with no real time frame or rush binding me, and after having cared for sick kids all day, I did a little exploring. 

On the way into town, by the time I got near the Casino, I was again behind someone going kind of slowly, and I didn't want to follow him all the way into Thief River.  I turned off and so began my adventure.  I found St. Pauli church, and a paved road I didn't know was there.  But that was the extend of my outgoing travels.

I turned north at the church and followed the paved road until it again joined 59 at that funky angle.  It was a pleasant little drive and I saw and learned some new things.  But it wasn't Valhalla.

After picking up a few things at Wal-Mart, depositing Joe's check, and filling the car with gas, I headed south out of town on Pennington.  I was bound and determined to find Valhalla. 

I passed the corner by Challenger, since I know where that road goes.  No mystery there.  I passed the first mile road, since I didn't think there was any mystery there.  I feels too close to town for my memory.

I passed the next mile road, since that's the one that goes to the Smiley bridge eventually.  I know that one, too.  The next mile, the one that should come out where the road curves past the airport, ... I don't think it goes through.  I'll have to check next time.  It's on the map, but I don't remember it. 

So I took the next one.

By that time, I had curved back to the west, so I felt kind of stupid meandering around out of the way, just for this silly notion I have about some cute place.  But, as I said, I was determined.  And the music was good.  The DJ had promised Miranda Lambert's new song, Mama's Broken Heart, which always make me smile.  It's such a fun song. 

Shortly after I turned east, the anticipated song came on, and I cranked up the volume.  I had opened my window while driving around town, and hadn't bothered to shut it.  So I felt kind of silly.  But I was loving every minute.  I felt like a teenager, which I kind of needed after caring for a sick child all day.

The sun was going down, but the light was still good.  The road was open.  The air was filled with the flavors of spring.  And the song was loud and fun. 

But suddenly there were ruts.  Deep ruts.  I heard the car bottom out.  Oh, shoot.  I guess I better slow down and stop cutting loose.  Like in the song, I guess.  I better hide my crazy and act like a lady.

I debated whether to stop and look at the underside of the car, but I figured I wouldn't really know what I was looking for anyway, ... Oh dear. 

I did stop briefly at the next intersection.  Kind of sat for a minute.  I figured in case something was leaking out the bottom, I'd give it a chance to make a puddle.  Then when I pulled forward, I'd see it in the mirror, right?

No puddle, so I guessed all was good.

"Hmm, I think that this must be about where Brian and Beth live.  Maybe I should stop and have Brian look underneath there."

And soon, sure enough, I saw their house up ahead.  To stop or not to stop?

"It looks pretty quiet there.  It's about 9:00.  They're probably trying to get kids settled down," I thought to myself.  "I've been OK so far.  If there was something badly wrong, wouldn't I know it by now?"

And so I drove past.  I did, however, turn my radio down before I got there.  THAT would have been totally embarrassing.

"What is that noise, Brian?"
"Some obnoxious teens out blaring their speakers."
"Wait! Look!"
"That was Mary!"

And so I came once again to 59.  And here is where I did the thing that probably defies common sense.  But hey.  I had been dealing with puke all day.  I really, really needed a little fun.

I continued east across 59.  At twilight.  Roads I had never traveled.  With a car that had bottomed out on the ruts a few minutes before.

In my defense, as I've said, the roads are all square.  Except where the river goes through.  I knew that as far south as I was, I'd get to the Kratka road and even, if the road went through, to the High Landing road before getting to the river.  I figured I was good.  What could go wrong?  I mean, even if something did happen, the people here are Minnesota nice.  I'd just ask for help at the nearest place. 

And so I drove on.  Window still open.  Music loud during the good songs.  The smells of spring filling the car.  The sights of spring filling my view.

It gave me wonderful sense of freedom and optimism.  And adventure.  Anything could happen, right?  What might I see?  What might I find?

I came to the Kratka road.  I briefly considered turning back toward familiar roads.  But I decided to stay on my little back road.  I knew the river would be up ahead.  I suspected that I'd have to turn south soon.  I knew there ought to be one more mile of east-west road between me and the highway.  I hoped that it was not too little a road.  I really, really was not ready for the highway yet.

One mile after the Kratka road, I came to the turn.  One of those places where to continue on would take me onto a minimum maintenance road.  Probably also a dead end, since I knew the river was angling south towards the River Valley Bridge.  So I tuned to the south for one mile, and then again went east.  I knew where I was, of course.  I was one mile north of the highway, and I could watch the road signs to keep track of each passing mile.  I know 290th is the Oklee road.  I was coming to an area I know, even if I'd never been on this particular stretch of road.

All was good in Mary's world.

Except that suddenly it was dark.

Then there wasn't much to look at.  There was a kind of deep ditch following along the right hand side of the road.  The road became minimum maintenance.  The ruts got bigger.  And there were no more farm places to run to in case something happened.

I started seeing things.  The deepening shadows became bears.  Or boogie men.  Or maybe cougars, out prowling for their supper. 

There were a few deer out, so I had to slow way down and keep a sharp eye.  I could just imagine hitting a deer out here in the middle of nowhere.

Or what if there was something falling apart from when I bottomed out?  What if it wasn't bad enough to cause a problem until just now?  Here.  Far from anything.

I watched the road signs.  I saw when I was on the north side of the section where Tyler lives.  Next I came to the north side of the section with the poplars across from Quinten and Alyssa's, that Tyler and Ryan are clearing.

I could see the radio tower.  Just over there.  Getting nearer.

I knew where I was.  I knew I could find someone if I needed.

But a whole section.  That's a mile.  I'd have to wander in the dark and lonesome night a whole mile before getting to any homes.

I began to see the folly of my actions.

I must admit that I breathed a big, giant sigh of relief when I hit the High Landing road.  And I gladly stayed on the tar the rest of the way home.

I had a little fun.  I lived a little dangerously.  I breathed the spring air.  I saw the spring.  The sides of the roadways and pastures are greening up.  The tractors are sitting out where fieldwork is beginning.  I was home safely.

But I never did find Valhalla.  Maybe next time.

Those Increasingly Frequent Rare Occasions

Over the weekend, I told Joe about my sudden inclination to drink pop.  I only drink pop on rare occasions.  Really.  It's just that suddenly, those rare occasions are coming with increasing frequency.  Joe thought that was a very funny ways of saying it, but it's true.  I don't consider myself a pop drinker, but lately I just can't help myself.

Eek!  I am embarrassed to say that I've bought a Coke at a gas station about seven times in the last month.   What a waste of money!  And, my poor pancreas!  "I'm really sorry, Mr. Pancreas, please don't stop working."  I'm sure this won't be a long term inclination.  But for some reason, I am just craving Coke.

And chips.  I've probably eaten more Doritos and potato chips (I'm so totally hooked on all those flavored kettle chips) in the last three months than I have in my entire life put together.  What's up with that?  I feel like Carol Cantell.  And just for the record, the answer is, "No, I am not pregnant!"  I know some of my readers well enough.  I can hear your little brains ticking, see you biting your tongues, just waiting for an opportune time to ask.  But no.  That is not the reason for these snack attacks.

But this post is not about chips.  It's about caffeine, and more particularly my sudden need for Coke. 

I never used to enjoy caffeine.  Really, it's true.  It made me sick to my stomach.  During my college years, for instance, if we had a big test to study for, or a paper to write, all my cohorts would keep themselves up all night with a Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper.  I would occasionally try it, but I always regretted it later.  Instead of staying up all night studying, I'd be hunched up in bed wondering if I would make it to the bathroom when I needed to get there.

I don't know what changed.  I rarely get sick to my stomach from caffeine now.  Occasionally, if I have a sugary coffee drink on an empty stomach I might feel icky, so I mostly avoid sugary coffee drinks.  But for the most part, I find caffeine a great boon in my life.  Almost a life jacket of sorts.

This change came upon me about the time I had a mere four kids.  Only four!  Just imagine.  It's a bit hard for me to remember back that far, to what life was like.  I remember feeling overwhelmed.  I remember feeling like I was always behind.  And always a little bit crazy.  (I guess some things don't change, huh?)  But it was different then.  I felt more need to try to keep up.  God had not yet taught me that He does, in fact, fill in where we can't do it.  I still thought I needed to do it ALL.

Joe was very busy in those days.  He worked at Bethany College, in Mankato, MN.  His official title was Associate Director of Library, but under that mantle, his main job was to maintain the computers in the library, including the student computer lab.  He also coordinated technology things with the other techy guys around campus, and cared for various other media needs around the college.  Besides his full time library job, though, he also served as an adjunct faculty member, teaching variously religion, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, self-defense, or any other classes for which he was qualified, if the need arose.  These teaching responsibilities were over and above his full time library position.

So while I was busy taking care of an ever increasing number of babies, Joe was working between 50 and 60 hours a week.  I didn't see much of him.  But while he often had to be gone into the evenings or work during the weekends, we lived near enough to Bethany that he could come home for many meals.  There were many times, however, when he'd arrive home for lunch, and I would be at my wit's end.  We came up with a little survival mechanism that we would employ on such days.  Joe would do lunch with the kids.  And I'd get to run down to the Citgo and pick up my usual:  an individual pizza, a Coke, and an Almond Joy.  Mmmm.

I'd park the car alongside some prettily tree lined avenue, or adjacent to one of the city parks.  I'd tune the radio to whatever I wanted.  I'd indulge in my junkie lunch.   Besides the junk food, though, there were the social bonuses, too.  I had quiet or noise, according to my own preference.  No pinching, pulling, yelling, fighting, or other form of altercation to resolve.  No disasters to avert or worse yet to clean up.  No responsibilities for that 30-45 minutes.  For me, at that busy time of my life, it was a little nugget of peace on earth.

Another thing I found though, that I totally didn't expect, is that the caffeine in the pop did not bother me.  Not at all.  It gave me a little energy boost in the midday.  And in fact, it seemed to lend me a touch of something else.  I noticed a bit of mental clarity, a focus that was new.  A definite improvement to my typically chaotic thought process.

In short order I was making coffee to enjoy at home every morning.  I felt as though I had attained some sort of landmark in growing up.  I had joined the ranks of coffee drinkers.  I could now engage in the pleasure of a cup of coffee shared with a friend.  But more than that, I was also a part of the general coffee drinker community.  I could appreciate and contribute to the coffee drinker conversation, the shared experiences of spilling on a new shirt or missing my first cup of the day; or the crisis of running out of grounds or having a coffee maker break-down.  I was finally part of the coffee world.  It was as though I had finally come of age.

I still enjoyed a periodic bottle of Coke, but not as often.  Part of the boon of caffeine, as I said before was the energy.  Because I was using coffee to start my day, I enjoyed a little boost to get me going on the day's tasks.  But the other and almost more pertinent aspect was the increased mental acuity, the clarity and focus.  And this is what changed my life as a young mother.  Although I still needed a periodic rescue by my dear husband, most often when he came home for lunch, I was not in any dire need of escape.  There was still a little bit left of me, to stay and help Joe do the lunch-with-little-ones thing, or to visit with him about his day.  What a blessed change! 

Coffee is still my primary caffeine source.  Until recently, I've never been much of a pop drinker.  It's a treat for rare occasions.  I'll buy a pop for a road trip, or very occasionally on a hot summer day.  Normally, when I'm thirsty I drink water; when I need caffeine, it's coffee.  I just can't justify spending money on pop.  It's a hugely expensive habit that is rife with the potential for ill effects.

But suddenly, lately, the last month or so, I... Want... Pop.

I can't fill the car with gas, without hearing the pop call from the coolers inside the station. That little whisper inside my head, coaxing me to indulge.  And when I pick up groceries, I can't get through the checkout aisle without raiding those coolers strategically placed to tempt impulse buyers.  And much to my chagrin, contrary to everything I would like to think of myself, an impulse buyer I have become.  At least regarding Coke.  Last Friday, while checking out at Wal-mart, I bought two Cokes.  Two!  One for the trip home and one for later in the weekend.

I've been trying to figure this out.  What's with this sudden urge to drink pop?  Is it some latent self-destructive leaning that is needing to squeak out suddenly?  Maybe after ten years of being a pastor's wife, is the pressure of always being good is finally getting to me?

Is it a nutritional imbalance?  Is there some component of Coke that supplies some micro-nutrient of which I'm running low? 

Or is it simply that in this season of my life, my particular brand of busyness is taxing my mental faculties?

I suspect that it's this last one.  I often find myself in short supply of mental clarity.  Real short.  I mean, really, really short.

Of late I am most often overwrought with the mass of those things of which I need to keep track.  I'm told this can be normal at my age.  That certain chemical changes that are likely beginning to occur in my body can bring on a confused and distracted state.  Combine that with the escalating outside activities to which the older kids are obligated, and the increase in younger children activities, too, now that they are in public school.

At least one of my daughters thinks I accomplish nothing all day.  I've tried to explain to her how mentally exhausting I find just keeping track of everything that needs to be kept track of.   A friend of mine who has ADD has described his mental state, prior to learning he had ADD, as continually circling the block trying to pull into the driveway, but never quite being able to pull in.  Building on that metaphor, I find my mental state most of the time as not even being able to tell whether I am arriving by boat or plane, train, bus or car.  And where is it I'm trying to get, anyway?  Remind me one more time, please.

And so, the pop.  Ah, yes, the pop.  Aaaaah, yesssss.   Mmm.  Just take a sip and feel the clarity return.  Coke particularly is just so good.  It brings back to me a little hint of the acuity I remember feeling when I first discovered the pleasures of caffeine.  For some reason, the coffee alone must not be quite cutting it any more.  I must need that evil high fructose corn syrup along with the caffeine.

I may never know why this works, or why I'm craving pop.  But I don't really care about the reason, anyway.  It makes me curious, but it doesn't really matter.  And I sincerely hope my pancreas suffers no long term ill effects from these sudden lapses of self-control.  I also hope that because of our very limited income my indulgent habit doesn't send us to the poor house.

But for now, I'm just going to enjoy the ride.  I just can't seem to resist these increasingly frequent rare occasions when I need a Coke.  And I guess I'm OK with it.

It's Italian, not Math, Mary!

I just took an on-line Italian quiz.  No, I wasn't merely wasting time.  Although I did have other things I wanted to be doing today. 

My Louisa is hoping to be a foreign exchange student in Italy next academic year.  She's learning Italian using Rosetta Stone.  But since Italian isn't one of Rosetta Stone's more commonly requested languages, it doesn't come with any supplemental materials, such as worksheets, tests and quizzes.  So I'm dinking around in the virtual world today, trying to find something she can use to reinforce what she's learning. 

I studied Italian for two semesters in college. But I don't really remember anything.  Or at least not much of anything.  I had also studied German for three years in highschool.  Highschool level language studies progress at a much slower pace than do college level courses.  I think a foreign language sticks with a person better when done at a slower pace.  

I traveled to Germany immediately after having studied Italian in college.  We stayed for three weeks with a family who spoke almost exclusively German.  When I first got there, I kept saying, "Si," rather than, "Ja," and, "Buon Giorno," rather than, "Guten Morgen."   But by the time we went to Italy at the end of our six weeks of traveling, I couldn't remember any Italian.  Almost nothing!  I think the German I learned in highschool resurfaced during my three week stay in Germany, and fully chased away any Italian I had managed to absorb during the previous college semesters.

Good thing many Germans travel to Italy for their holidays.  Most Italians we needed to speak with spoke German pretty well.  So between their second language skills and our own, we communicated more easily than in either Italian or English. 

So I'm not really much help to Louisa in her Italian language studies.

But I did have a pretty good classical type or college prep education, and I have always been a huge reader.  From that combination I have a little bit of ability to connect words that sound alike, or have similar roots, and can often make a reasonable guess at the meaning of isolated foreign words.  Especially in Italian or Spanish, since they have so many similarities to Latin, which is the root of so many of our English words. 

I can guess at German and Norwegian words or phrases for a different reason.  Since they are not romance languages, they don't get their foundations from Latin.  But they have similar roots to the English language (it's the whole Anglo-Saxon thing, I guess).  So they often just sound similar to our English words.  Guten Morgen, for example does not sound too much different than Good morning.

But I digress, sorry.  I'm a word geek, I find languages very fascinating.  When I was young I wanted to learn all the languages in the world.  We had a retired neighbor whose surname I can't spell correctly, so I'm not going to try.  He's just going to be, "The neighbor."  He had worked, I believe, for the national government (maybe state department) in some international capacity.  The neighbor had collected over his years of service a good number of languages.  Something like eight or nine.  I always held him is awe because of this talent.    

The neighbors were the kind of older couple who kept a little dish of candy just inside the door.  They liked for us kids to come over and visit.  We'd ring the doorbell and visit a few minutes and leave with our little piece of candy.  But behind the polite little visits with The neighbors, underneath the desire for that little piece of candy, was always the idea that this man was very cool.  He knew lots of languages.  Wow!

With that whole language thing in mind, just to see how I could do, I tried my hand at this Italian language quiz of common phrases at Quiz Tree a few minutes ago.  I did have a little help from Joe, who also does not speak Italian, but is a bigger language geek than I am.  He didn't help me with all of the questions, but for a few I couldn't decide between the two more likely answers, I'd ask his opinion. I think I got all the questions correct.  The little answer blinked green when I answered all of them. 

Just to be sure that I was interpreting the quiz blinks correctly, I just did a test and yes, it blinked red when I intentionally answered one wrong. As you can see from the screenshot I took of my quiz scores, I got the following results.

Think about that a minute.

Score: 640/700
Accuracy: 100%

Hmm.   Joe's response, "It's Italian, Mary, not math!"

The Call of a Dirt Road

Is there not something beguiling about a dirt road?



On the Road is one of my favorite John Denver songs, and the line, "So I looked out the window and dreamed I was a cowboy," resonates with me regarding many a road trip as a child.  But the preceding line, "I asked my Daddy, 'Where are we going?'  He said, 'We'll just follow our nose,' " is the line I was thinking of today.

Today there was a church dinner at St. Petri. St. Petri is just outside of Grygla, about 20 miles almost straight north of here. It's also 4 miles to the east.  But the roads don't go straight north. The main reason is that there is a river in between. But roads also tend to follow the towns, and although St. Petri is a bit east of us, the only town in between is on a road a bit to the west of us.  So when following the roads, the 24 miles turn into 30.

St.Petri is located 3/4 mile off the main east/west highway into Grygla.  When one leaves the church, the driveway heads south and then curves west, and then one must turns south again before reaching the highway.  Today, when I reached the highway, I turned on my blinker.  I pulled up to the stop sign, and pulled slightly into the turn as I stopped. 

But then, oh my, but then!  I looked ahead.  And the dirt road called my name.  "Come hither, my maiden, and drive upon my mysterious ways.  Come, see what I offer in sights and sounds.  Breath deeply of my fragrance and taste of my pleasures."

I do realize full well that the mystery of the straight and flat roads near us is not so intense as that of a mountain road in Washington, or the rolling hills and dales of Wisconsin.  But when one looks ahead and the road disappears into the horizon; or when it passes through a grove of cool and shady trees right up near the edges; or when one spies up ahead a narrow bridge; or better yet, you come to a sign that says, "Minimum Maintenance Road;" all these things  can lend a touch of mystery to an otherwise uneventful 30 miles.

So when I heard the call of the gravel road, I heeded it.  I flicked off my blinker and pulled straight across the highway.

From the back seat emanated the sound of a collective groaning.  Amidst the groaning, I heard questions and comments, "Aren't you supposed to turn?" or "I have to go to the bathroom, so don't take all day," or my favorite, "You always drive us into the ditch when you do this."

But still, I plugged ahead.  I tuned out the voices plaguing me, and forged on, into the wild blue yonder.

And I had a wonderful time of it. 

"Candy" Reading Series for the Junior High or Highschool Reader (or even adult)

Conspiracy 365
by Gabrielle Lord

I first reviewed this series just over a year ago.  This post is a follow up of sorts, so it will make more sense if you read that one first.

I've not yet finished this entire series, even though they are very fast reads.  One book takes me maybe three or four hours.  It's been somewhat challenging remembering which one to request from the library at the right time, and then having a free evening to read it when I do finally get it.

I really recommend this series for anyone who likes adventure, suspense, heroes and a heroine, and just a hint of romance.  There is also an element of fantasy, since many of the "nick of time" escapes that protagonist, Callum Ormond, manages would never work in real life.  At least, hair breadth escapes do not generally work one after another for an entire year, constantly, as they seem to do for Callum.  But I suppose, the entire premise is a bit fantastical in the first place, as is the steady stream of dramatic dangers that Callum encounters.

I picked up August and September at the library yesterday and yes, sadly, have finished them both.  When I got to the end of September, it ended so suddenly that I kept turning the page for several tries, thinking I had missed some pages.  But alas! it was just the next cliffhanger.  I'll have to wait to get the next couple in a few more months...

So far, there is only one spot at which I think the author committed a gross inconsistency.  But even that, I'm not  sure without checking back, which I probably will never do.

To reiterate a point upon which I touched in the original review, these books are clean.  Not even any swearing.  The hint of romance is very innocent and sweet. 

For such a quick moving story line, with next to nothing besides the perpetual action, the three primary characters are well developed, and continue to develop well in each consecutive book.  They really live in the sense that when the story is done, the readers is left feeling a little lonely for those friends he has to leave behind until he picks up the next book.

I'm in the process of trying to reduce number of volumes in our home library by 1/3, but even so, if I found these second hand and cheap, I'd buy them in a heartbeat. In each volume, there always seems to be at least a few things that I would like to recheck.  It would be an especially nice collection for a reluctant young male reader.

Eminent Domain at White Bluffs

When I was little, my paternal grandmother periodically mentioned White Bluffs.  Grandma was always a bit sad about it.  I didn't understand at the time the significance that place held for her.  Nor had I any idea of the role that little town and the area surrounding it played in the history of the modern world.

I eventually came to understand that my grandparents had farmed near White Bluffs.  And that they had to leave.  And that leaving was not something they chose to do.

But the name White Bluffs was still a mystery to me.  I only knew it made Grandma sad.

When I got a little older, I tried to find White Bluffs on a map of Washington.  It did not exist.

More mystery.

At some point, probably well into adulthood, I put it all together.  I had asked enough questions and done enough reading on my own to figure out the mystery.  This brief history is probably still not fully accurate, but this is what I've pieced together thus far.

The town of White Bluffs had its start as a ferry site across the Columbia River.  Native peoples used the site for crossing the Columbia.  Later, The Hudson's Bay Company ran a trading post there. Miners on the way to the British Columbia gold rush could cross the river and stock up on supplies.  By 1850, steamboats came up the Columbia from Portland bringing people and supplies to join the packtrains heading north.

By the early 1940s, the region was a rich agricultural area and the small towns were growing.  The Milwaukee Road ran through White Bluffs providing residents the goods they needed and taking away the literal fruits of their labors.

According to the U.S. Government's Hanford history page

Hanford and White Bluffs epitomized the early American West.  Farming and agriculture were the dominant industries in these little towns, even though the area receives just seven inches of rain a year.  An early irrigation system provided water from the Columbia River to orchards and field crops, and fruit ripened more quickly here than in any other part of the Pacific Northwest.  Small, family-run stores and other businesses began to open after the turn of the century, and some of the earliest automobiles could be seen on the dirt streets of the communities.  A ferry docked near White Bluffs and shuttled passengers across the Columbia River.  A railroad called “Sagebrush Annie” carried riders between Hanford and White Bluffs.  Children attended schools in both communities and White Bluffs even had a weekly newspaper.

The worst years of the depression were finally over and things were looking up.

My grandparents had a farm outside of White Bluffs.  They had planted a vineyard and lovingly tended their vines.  They looked forward to harvesting their first full crop of grapes.

Then came the announcement.  I suppose it was a letter, but that is not clear from the history I can find.  Perhaps it was just a public announcement through posters and newspapers.

The government needed the land for the war effort.  Most residents had only 30 days to get off their land.  Some residents were given only a couple of days to two weeks to leave. 

As part of the Manhatten Project, the government needed a site well away from major cities and transportation centers, and yet near a plenteous supply of clean water.  It was here in the area around the towns of Hanford and White Bluffs, that the Federal Government chose to process the plutonium needed for the nuclear program.  The government used their power of eminent domain to take the land from the local people.

 

The area became the Hanford Engineer Works where the plutonium was processed for the first nuclear test bomb that was detonated at the Trinity site in New Mexico, and also for Fat Man, the bomb dropped over Nagasaki, Japan.

The Hanford site continued into the cold war as the primary plutonium processing facility in the United States.  Currently there is one power plant still in operation there.

Because nuclear science was in its infancy during the early years at Hanford, the area has very high levels of radioactive waste.  Clean-up is ongoing.

I have an uncle on my mom's side of the family who ranched and raised his family within a few miles of the borders of Hanford.  Uncle Max passed away last year on my birthday.  He had lived into his 90s.

Several years ago, I asked Uncle Max how he felt about the reports of the high levels of radioactive waste that were alleged to be slowly leaking into the area.  Max replied that he never worried about it too much.  This was his home and he farmed it the best he could and that was all he could do.

But he also said that the plutonium made in that facility probably saved his life.  You see, Uncle Max was fighting in World War II with the US Navy in the South Pacific.  Uncle Max had always figured, based on the rumors that were going around at the time regarding the plans for the ship he was on, that he and many others would not have come home alive were it not for the nuclear bombs.

All that remains of White Bluffs today is the bank.  It looks kind of lonely, doesn't it?

Emotional Malaise Due to Fiction of Medical Compromisation

Did that title make any sense at all?  Hopefully it will when I'm done venting my angst.

Did you ever read a book or see a movie that left you feeling icky afterwards?  Over the weekend I read Tess Gerritsen's Harvest.  Throughout the day today, I would recall some aspect of the troubling plot and would suddenly feel sad.

There are some genres of literature I avoid because of the intensity of the suspense or the goriness of the story line or the graphically violent or s*xual descriptions.  This book does not really fall into any of those categories.  I would call this story a thriller of medical ethics.  It is realistic enough that the possibility of a situation similar to that described in this plot seems plausible.

I don't like stories that imply that someone into whose hands I may at some point need to lay my life might be immersed in unethical behavior.  When a person is unconscious or in a compromised condition, they ought to be able to trust those into whose care they are surrendered.  I don't like to be reminded of the human nature of caregivers.  I don't want to know about the possibility that some health care provider may make a decision for a patient's care based on things other than the patient's best interest.

Unfortunately I saw the movie, Kill Bill, at the theater with my husband.  (Yes, he likes those comic strip-ish martial arts movies, but that would be another story.)  There was a situation in that movie that left me similarly saddened and unsettled.  The heads getting chopped off didn't both me.  That part was obviously fictitious.  But the behavior of the hospital personnel was realistically heinous.  Ick Yuck.  People ought to have peace of mind that their care during times of physical compromise is above board.

Writing, Researching, and Geocaching

A month or so ago, I was asked to write a story for the Northwest Regional Library for one of their summer reading programs.  This sounds like it will be a really fun program, when they get it all up and running.  In conjunction with the area state parks, the libraries hope to offer an Intro to Geocaching class.  The librarians have commissioned mystery stories, one for each park involved, to teach a bit of the history of the area of each respective state park.

The kids who attend the class will receive the initial part of the story, and after finding a series of caches will eventually find the end of the story.  I think this is a really great idea.  What a fun way to learn a little state history and get some fresh air at the same time.  And it also encourages people to make use of Minnesota's excellent state park system.

I was assigned Lake Bronson State Park.  I took a day off from motherhood and my other various vocations.   I escaped to latitudes further north yet than those I generally frequent.  I suppose, technically, Lake Bronson is within the same 48 degree latitude as our home.  Even though it takes an hour and a half to get there, latitudianlly speaking, it's approximately 46 minutes further north.  

After my hour and a half drive northward, I spent a day exploring the area around Lake Bronson and its history.  This task was made much easier due to the wonderful help of Cindy at the Kittson County Historical Society.  They have a fantastic museum up there.  Really.  I could hardly believe the extent of their collection.  The museum is in Lake Bronson and is free to the public but donations are accepted.

Eventually I got my little story done, thanks to Jolene at the library and others for their help in keeping it to the requisite maximum length story.  I originally thought it was Winston Churchill who once apologized for writing a long letter. But I see a couple of different phraseologies of the same idea attributed to Blaise Pascal in his Lettres Provinciales, "I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter."  (Boy, how embarrassing to have wrongly attributed this saying in the past.)

At any rate, I got the story done, had great fun with my day off for researching, and finally, I decided I should find out what geocaching is all about.   I'm not going to explain it here, since the web site listed below does it so much better.  But I'll just say it's a global GPS treasure hunt using Latitude and Longitude coordinates.

When we were at the library recently, Joe pointed out The Joy of Geocaching, by Paul and Dana Gillin.  I was reading it the other day on the way to a family outing at St. Hilaire City Park.  (Yes, Joe was driving.) We picnicked and the kids played and Joe fished.  After cleaning up, I took a little walk/run around the park.

When I got home, I checked the Geocaching.com website to see whether there were any geocaches in this area of Minnesota.  Wow.  There are a bunch, including two in the St. Hilaire City Park.  Weird.  I probably was very near them during my walk/run.

But I had not yet gotten my geocaching act together.  Now I have.  Or at least I'm in the process of getting it together.  I have printed up the info on the two geocaches in St. Hillaire in case we are again at the park.  I've also printed up several other clusters of caches in other areas that we frequent, so when we have a few extra minutes we can do a little searching.  (There are two in Lengby, Amy; and four in Red Lake Falls, Laura.)

But today, yes today, I found my first cache.  Dustin and Adam at Carco put two new tires on the van.  (Thanks, you guys are great.)  On the way home, we detoured to see if we could find the Twin Pines cache near Cross Lake.   I really hate to have to admit, but...Joe found it first.  But I was right there on the cusp of the find.  Joe, however, does not have the geocache user name.  I do.  Hee, hee.

The cache by the Neptune Bridge has us stymied.  I was over there with Elsie the other day searching, and again today with Joe.  But it is surely well hidden.  Yes, David and Darlene, that is us tramping around across the river from you.

So we have a new family hobby.  I hope it is something we can all enjoy.  Perhaps we can take some coordinates along when we go on our vacation to the North Shore in a few weeks.

Ethics, Unsubstantiated

Once upon a time, a coworker and I were debating the possibility of a universal set of moral principles based, not on the Bible or any other religious tradition, but upon some reasoned idea of right and wrong, good and bad.

I said to this coworker that I didn't think it was possible to not base moral principles upon religious tradition.  He asserted that it should be possible to come up with some sort of universal right and wrong.

I was reminded of this conversation recently while reading The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith.  Smith's protagonist, in the series of which this book is the fourth, is Isabel Dalhousie, a Scottish philosopher whose particular area of interest is ethics.  I'm not up on all the correct philosophical terminology, but if I had to put Ms. Dalhousie in a box with some title, I'd say she is a rational humanist.  She has no religion, per say and tends to think of herself as a-religious.  But in fact, her ability to reason is her religion.  She believes in it firmly and in her mind, every human situation has a consequence.  In order to be faithful to the precepts of her rational humanism, she must weigh the actions of every moment of her life on the basis of their ethical merits.  This leads me to wonder upon what one bases morality, when one has no foundation, nothing more substantial upon which to settle these matters than human wisdom.

This morning, while I was enjoying my morning cup of joe with a few chapters from The Careful Use of Compliments, I ran into the idea of guilt.  Guilt is a reality of human experience.  It's that law written in one's heart of which the Bible tells.  Both believers and unbelievers experience guilt.  It's also called having a conscience.

But, alas, a second reality of human experience is that our consciences are flawed because of the sin that pervades each of us.  And because of that we often feel guilt over things for which we are not responsible.

God has given each of us things for which we are responsible. In Lutheran theology, this is called vocation.  Most of us have several vocations, the obligations of which we must balance.  I am a wife, a mom, a homemaker, a home educator, a pastor's wife, a parishoner, the mom of some public school kids, a neighbor and friend, and a US citizen.  There are probably more titles I could find for myself.  Each of you readers of this blog has a unique set of vocations.

Isabel Dalhousie also has many vocations, although in her rational humanist world, I don't know whether she would call them vocations.  But mostly what she has is guilt.  She can never seem to figure out how to be nice and behave ethically toward everyone.  In this quote, she struggles with guilt even because of her annoyance over some biting midges.

     "Remember  drosophila from biology class?" Isabel said.  "The fruit fly?  They had two or three weeks, didn't they?  Two or three weeks to pack everything in.  I assume that the Highland midge has much the same.  Not much of a lifespan."
     "That doesn't make me feel sorry for them," said Lizzie.  "There are limits, you know."
     Isabel knew.  It was her biggest problem, after all:  how to draw limits to the extent of one's sympathy.  In the past, she had become involved in all sorts of difficulties by taking upon herself the problems of others; now she had resolved to be more practical about that, and was trying not to get involved in matters that she had no moral obligation to do anything about.  She was trying.

Of course, Isabel can't really not get involved.  First of all it wouldn't make much of story if the heroine didn't stumble upon a mystery in each installment.  But besides that, Isabel is always carrying on an internal dialog over what her moral imperative is in any given situation.   She has nothing but her own reason upon which to base her decisions.  And her reason often directs her toward multiple conflicting behaviors.

Each of my vocations carries its own set of responsibilities.  I cannot accomplish any of these tasks perfectly. I might be tempted to feel guilty if I can't do everything.  I think that "Supermom" might be a good word for the idea of doing everything and doing it really well.  But I am very definitely NOT a supermom.  I must prioritize.  If I keep in mind the Christian precepts of loving God above all things and loving my neighbor as myself, this helps me prioritize.  God has further specified that His married children must be a helper for their spouses, and those with children must train their children in God's law and the message of grace through Jesus Christ. These always must remain my highest priority.

My other vocations must fit around the edges of those top priorities.  Sometimes my interest is more or less toward one or another of these auxiliary vocations.  But when I am faithful to the first priorities, I need feel no guilt about the extent to which I am able to accomplish the other tasks I might attempt to fulfill.  Any pangs of conscience on that score are self-imposed.

And even when I don't fulfill perfectly the top priorities, I can trust to God's grace and Jesus' perfect life for me.  God has given me that.  He has credited to my name the perfect life of Christ.  What a relief!  What blessing!  What joy!

Electrical Grid Mysteries

I'm in no way complaining about the luxury of having electricity. Don't get me wrong. Nor am I complaining about the luxury of having a plethora of listening choices in my vehicle. We have a CD player, tape player, AM radio, FM radio...

BUT, I am frustrated with this little inconvenience that is happening lately. Not really so much frustrated. Maybe a teeny bit frustrated. Mostly, I'm perplexed and intrigued.

The electrical wires that are strung along our road for the five mile section of road along which we live suddenly cause horrible interference with radio reception in the car. It is fine up at the house. It is fine when we turn off our road three and a half miles to the north. It is fine when we cross the Clearwater River about 2 miles to the south. But along this little stretch of road, once we get on the roadway, we get mostly very loud choppy static with a little bit of voice coming through.

Why is this? It makes me curious. We have lived here for over eight years. Suddenly, late this last winter, the the wires began causing interference.

I thought initially it was just the decrepit radio in our van. I'd turn it off in frustration soon after leaving the house. Later in a given trip, I'd forget about the interference and turn it back on and it would work fine. Until we got near home. I assumed it was our van radio, since it has another set of digital problems such as arbitrarily turning on and off and changing stations by its own accord.

But lately... lately I've been making frequent trips into Oklee driving Joe's car to pick up Matt and Louisa from play and track practice. Aha! It is not only my van radio. Joe's car radio does the same thing. Since I usually begin these Oklee travels alone, I've have the mental wherewithal to investigate the problem.

A pattern begins to show itself.

The wires strung along the road in front of our house, end at our neighbors' house, a mile and a half south of us. I don't know what happens to them after that. They must be underground. The other farms further down have no visible wires along the road.

The bridge I mentioned earlier is about a half mile south of our neighbors'. Once I get past the neighbors' house, the reception begins to clear up. But immediately statics up again as the vehicle approaches the bridge. Once across the bridge, the reception again clears and then is fine, even when the vehicle later passes along wires that are along other roadways.

It is just these wires near our house. And here's yet a few more mysteries. The wires at our house are on the east side of the road. One half mile to the south of us, where the county changes, the wires cross to the west side of the road. Sometimes, the interference is mild enough it only effects the vehicle when in the lane nearest the wires. Other times, both lanes are effected.

There is one of those green electrical boxes at the corner where the wires cross the road. The interference seems to peak at that point. North of the box, the reception is somewhat clearer than south of the box.

Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser.

And why did this just start happening? What is different about the wires now, compared to the first eight years we lived here? Is it a stray voltage thing? One used to hear talk about stray voltage regarding dairy farms. Maybe radios are effected, too.

Maybe there is something goofy in that little green box.

But the bridge. Why does the reception clear once I pass the wires, but then get bad when crossing the bridge. Maybe the underground wires are strung along the underside of the bridge.

Who knows?

Not me. I just wonder. For now it will have to remain one of my life's little mysteries.

We do have a friend in the Madison, WI, area who is an electrical engineer. He designs grid stuff for metropolitan areas. He would probably be able to answer my questions. But, alas, I don't think he knows this blog exists.

Bruce, are you out there anywhere? I have a little electrical grid mystery for you to solve.