Canoeing the Crow

Connie at our lunch break in a bucolic pasture along the river.

Connie Scott and I spent many happy hours together during junior and senior high school. We attended the same school, the same summer camp, the same church and the same Girl Scout troop. Our mothers were friends and we often thought they conspired to enroll us as a pair to encourage us to take part in various cultural and recreational activities.

During the summer months, Connie and I spent a lot of time on the water of two of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes: Lake Harriet in south Minneapolis and Linwood Lake in Anoka County. We passed lifesaving training at the 46th Street beach and spent the summer of 1964 as lifeguards and junior counselors at Camp Ajawah at Linwood Lake. Many long summer afternoons were spent in my family's Alumacraft canoe, which was kept at the Lake Harriet dock.

During most of our adult years, Connie was an elementary school principal and I was a newspaper reporter, county commissioner and mother of four. We were too busy to get together. Then we both retired--and her older brother purchased a lake cabin near Dassel. Suddenly the opportunity to see one another regularly became a reality.

This spring we both turned 65. I suggested that us gals go canoeing again together. We tried a short paddle on a nearby lake on Memorial Day weekend. Then I offered to take her on a day canoe trip down the North Fork of the Crow River in Meeker County. I had taken the four-hour trip numerous times, but not for about five years. Connie had not had access to a canoe for many years.

We were also a LOT older. Could two 65-year-old women load, unload and paddle a quick-moving river without help from anyone else?

We looked like zombies after coating our skin with zinc oxide sunblock

Pulling up the canoe at the Kingston landing

What a great day.  My first mishap was falling into the water as we were getting the canoe into the river. It was a warm day & my bathing suit was underneath my shorts, so it was no big deal, but I started out a muddy and soggy. Twice we pulled the 50-pound cedar-strip canoe (lighter than the old Alumacraft!) over logs that had fallen across the full width of the river. I almost lost my hat and Connie fished my stray paddle out of the water before it headed downstream without us. We saw songbirds, water birds, big snapping turtles and followed a huge, beautiful bald eagle, up close, for approximately one mile.



We couldn't take many photos because the current made keeping a camera outside of a waterproof bag hazardous, so we had to settle for shots during our lunch break and while pulling the canoe out at the Kingston Park landing.

Connie admitted that she had been more apprehensive than she had let on, but says she can now cross something off her "Bucket List." I hope we can go again sometime--maybe try a different stretch of the river.

The photos tell the story. Old ladies can still have fun on the water.

Amy had mostly dried off by lunch break.

30 Days of Creativity

Decided last month that I would attempt to take on the "30 Days of Creativity" challenge by creating something every day during the month of June. A person should never be too old to create, right?

Day 1 - 01 June

My project was transplanting 15 small trees to create better bird & wildlife habitat on our new homestead. I had planted 60-some trees a month ago, but a few of them were too close to a power line and one got accidentally snapped off by the lawnmower. So I relocated several chokecherry and plum trees into a strip of native grass planting. When mature, those brushy trees should provide food and habitat for birds.

Day 2 - 02 June

Today's project was cooking. Made pumpkin bars and homemade fudge sauce for ice cream. Since I am trying to cut back on fat and sugar, I adapted a couple of "tried and true" recipes. Substituted additional pumpkin for part of the oil in the bars and also cut back a little on the sugar. Then I used skim milk instead of whole milk for the fudge sauce & served it over fat-free frozen yogurt instead of ice cream. These dessert treats are still tasty. Since the pumpkin was home-grown & frozen last fall, it really melts in the mouth.

Day 3 - 03 June

It was Sunday, so wanted to take things easy. Decided to do an embroidered dish towel. Here is what I've done so far. This project will take another day or two to finish.

Day 4 - 04 June

Watered the transplanted trees and the transplanted vegetables in my garden. But that's not really creativity--just maintenance. So my "creative challenge" was starting this blog post and figuring out how to add photos to it. Not difficult at all, really, even for a late-blooming computer user like myself. Also took a few photos of the beautiful pastoral views from our homestead. From top to bottom: looking east, looking northwest, looking northeast.

Day 5: 05 June

More landscaping today. Put ground cloth under the deck we are building in preparation for landscaping rock. Nothing I care to take a photo of since more work needs to be done.

Day 6: 06 June

Today's challenge: public policy problem solving. Spent an exhilarating two hours with other members of the Minnesota River Area Agency on Aging NE Advisory Council discussing and brainstorming about how our senior services contractors are adjusting to reduced federal funding, and changes in rural infrastructure and demographics, and the preferences of our senior citizens in obtaining affordable housing with services and nutritious meals. I chaired the meeting (on short notice) due to the absence of our usual chairperson. Home-delivered meals remain a popular option for frail elders who live alone and lack transportation. The old-style congregate meals are down in numbers in some communities, but nutritious "Diners' Club" meals contracted with local restaurants are growing in popularity & contribute to the local economy, along with the well-being of rural elders who live alone.  Nothing to photograph today--but the creative juices flowed during this exercise in group dynamics.

Day 7: 07 June

At the Kingston Park landing.

My most fun creativity challenge yet! At age 65 I can still navigate a quick-moving river & successfully (at least most of the time) select a route through downed trees, rocks, sandbars, etc. that didn't topple the canoe. My girlhood chum Connie Scott (also 65) and I canoed a stretch of the North Fork of the Crow River today and I took a few photos (the current was too fast to safely use a camera most of the time) and blogged about it. See my separate post on this blogspot site, "Canoeing the Crow" for more details.

Days 8 and 9: 08 and 09 June

Musical creativity yesterday and today! Practiced and played guitar with my daughter and husband (yes, he still plays washtub bass on occasion.) Due to play again this evening at the "Best of 12" Wagon Train encampment, so music will be a two-day project.

Day 10: 10 June

Am working on an Op-Ed piece. Since it's as a volunteer and not as part of my business, I guess that makes it more "creativity" than "work." Also did a little more embroidery.

Day 11: 11 June

Finished and sent off the Op-Ed piece. Time will tell if it gets published. If it does, I will share on my Facebook business page. (Amy Wilde Connections)


Follow up: the piece was published as a guest editorial in this week's D-C Enterprise Dispatch, but that newspaper does not publish its entire edition on line, and I cannot figure out how to post a MS Word document on Facebook. I also submitted the piece to another paper, and may be able to link to that one if it's ever published there. In the meantime, anyone interested in reading "Why I Am No Longer a Republican" may message me w/their email & I'll forward a MS Word attachment.

Day 12 & 13: 12 & 13 June

The first "vegetable basket" tea towel.

Had three volunteer driving gigs early this week, so spent time in doctors' waiting rooms finishing this embroidered tea towel. Then I started another.

Daughter Beth knows I like garden vegetables, so for my birthday, she gave me these patterns to iron on to flour-sack dish towels. Was challenging to locate "eggplant purple" embroidery floss, but I found it. Now am using the same color on a bunch of beets on the 2nd vegetable towel project.









Day 14: 14 June

The table is ready for my Ladies' Bible Study group.

Gwen, Diane and June are ready to dig into the Book of Matthew with me.

Today's project was hospitality. It was my turn to host the Thursday morning Dassel Ladies' Fellowship Bible Study group.  I prepared a simple snack (fruit, muffins & nuts) and set the table with my Grandma Hazel's china and three gifts from our foreign exchange students as a centerpiece.  Our group is studying the Gospel of Matthew. The Jacobian oak table & chairs also once belonged to my grandmother. Dassel's talented Harriet Berg had re-caned the chairs for us. I had done the refinishing myself.

June is the facilitator for our group. How many people in their 80s do you know who are guiding a weekly study group? June is a great example of Titus 2:1-5.

Took photos of recent projects and undated this blog. Now to think of projects for the second half of June!

Day 15: 15 June

Busy day clearing out and organizing our home office. Not a favorite task--trying to figure out what to toss and what to save and how to save it so that I can find it when we need it.  I guess that is creative, after a fashion. I found a photo of one of my granddaughters that I had been looking for, and re-read some of the  notes of support received at my retirement party--and filled a bag full full of papers to throw away. Also took time in the evening to practice a few new songs on my guitar.

Day 16: 16 June

Ellie relaxes with her favorite barn kitten, "Wiggles"

Beth and Ellie with the quilt.

Granddaughter Ellie visited today. (Also her dad Chris--to help Bob with the deck for Fathers' Day.) We played with the many multi-colored kittens in the barn--most of which Elisabeth has managed to tame after finding them in various nooks and crannies around the farm. Beth also asked me to help her lay out and put together a quilt top she has finished.  The only flat surface large enough to lay out the quilt was the floor of the church basement. Nice to have a creative daughter--and the granddaughter assisted as well.

Look what was waiting for us in the barn!

One of my favorite kittens.

Beth is looking for good homes for several of the kitens, if anyone is interested. Their mothers are all good hunters, so they would make good "outdoor" cats.





















 Day 17: 17 June

Chicken-Barley Stew with garden vegetables.

Made a Father's Day dinner for six of us;  made chicken and barley stew and Beth and Dan brought their fresh-picked berries. Most of the vegetables came from last summer's garden. Then Chris and Ellie left to drive back to Iowa.

Spent the rest of the day relaxing and editing the photos I took yesterday in Photoshop. Also did a little work on photo albums and some embroidery.



Days 18 and 19: 18 & 19 June

Peterson's Jewelry Store in Dassel, circa 1940s.

Interior of Bengtson Motors garage, Dassel, circa late 1930s-early 1940s.

A two-day creative exercise: helping complete an upcoming Dassel Area Historical Society publication, Main Street Kids. It consists of memories and stories from the children of Dassel business owners, dating from 1930-1970. For the past couple of months, I have been scanning old photos & formatting them in Photoshop Elements for publication. Many of the 100-plus photos were on temporary loan and some needed to be located in the DAHS collection. All of them needed to be re-formatted.

The book is due at the publisher on Friday, so the pressure is on to "get 'er done." It's a pretty intense project this week, working with my former boss, retired newspaper editor Carolyn Holje.

Judy Gudmundson, Don Berg, Mary Jensen and several others are also assisting with this project. A couple of the great classic photos we plan to use are shown above.
 
Day 20: 20 June

Developed a short study on Isaiah 42 for Lake Jennie's Women's Fellowship. Used a book of short, published devotions  as a "starter," then expanded on it to the full 12 verses of the passage. We met at Bonnie Hahn's home in the old Lake Jennie townsite. Got heavy rain that evening after we got home, but nothing like what hit Duluth & that part of NE Minnesota.

Day 21: 21 June

This was the first day I've been so busy that I did not have even one minute to devote to something creative. Had three meetings, with lots of driving in between. Although I did not create anything new, a second newspaper published my Op-Ed piece. A colleague posted it on my Amy Wilde Facebook timeline.

Day 22: 22 June

Spent most of the day cleaning an apartment that had been trashed by one of our vacating tenants. At this point in time, I am just happy that this troubled little parasite is OUT of our building; she owed several months' back rent besides being a very "casual" housekeeper. But I did have time to do a little embroidery this afternoon, while waiting at a St. Cloud therapist's office for a very sweet lady who cannot drive because of her broken wrist. Am grateful that I have my health so I am physically able to drive, haul trash to the county dump and do the cleaning. Am also grateful that a dear, old friend (who enjoys cleaning--what a gift) came to help with the dirty kitchen this evening.

Day 23: 23 June

More heavy cleaning. Whew. Also did a little photo scanning at the museum and attended my sister and brother-in-law's 50th wedding anniversary party. Not a really creative day, but we did show the cleaned apartment and got a new tenant. One that appears to have a work ethic.

Day 24: 24 June

Marcia & Gene Kath, Amy, Kay and Bob at the Falls.

Minnehaha Falls in mid-summer.

Created an extended family get-together on fairly short notice. My sister was in town and so we, two of my kids, a daughter-in-law, two grandchildren and my second cousin Gene and his wife met her at Minnehaha Falls Park in Minneapolis for a Sunday evening picnic: ham sandwiches, fruit, relishes and a delicious pie made from Beth's fresh-picked wild raspberries. The falls were gorgeous--there has been plenty of rain this summer to make the water flow impressive. Kay and I spent many happy summer afternoons biking to Minnehaha Falls with our friends when we were girls, so there are a lot of memories in that place. 

Son Joe and his children enjoyed wading below the falls.

The weather was "What is so rare as a day in June?" perfect.
















Days 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29: 25-29 June

Another embroidery project in process.

My creativity challenge kind of fell apart during the last week of June.  There was a lot of just plain HARD WORK needed.

We are getting ready for a week and a half of vacation next week, and there is a lot of work to get done before we leave. The garden needed weeding, lawn needed mowing, the vacated apartment needed repainting for the new tenant. I also helped a friend with her political campaign and had two volunteer driving gigs, a doctor's appointment, my weekly Bible study, and two housing authority meetings. Whew. A lot of pressure for a retired lady.

Early vegetables from my garden.

Although most of the work was not very "creative," it was satisfying to "create" a clean, welcoming apartment out of a trashed mess. There was also vegetable creativity on two fronts: The fresh peas, lettuce, radishes and brocolli made good meals (see photo at left) and I had a chance to embroider more vegetables while waiting for my driving clients at their appointments. Still working on that piece.

But I wasn't really being very "intentional" about my creativity. My daughter commented that she does "creative" things like this every day of her life, but has never taken the time to blog about them.



Day 30: 30 June

I hauled an entire pickup load to the dump.

Here are before and after photos of my apartment cleaning & renovation project. The new tenant started moving in today. I hope she will enjoy her new home. I'm ready for vacation!

The other creative thing I did on the last day of this challenge was play my guitar and try to figure out the chording for the four songs Beth selected to sing at the annual Sunday School picnic. No guitar chords were listed, so I did it by ear. They were familiar tunes, but one included 6 or 7 different chords.

The completed kitchen.

The completed sitting room and bedroom.

The kitchen prior to cleaning and painting. The insides of the fridge & range were also dirty.