2020 An April Apart

Some of the wood from our trees

Caleb, Rowan and Rhiannon Easter hoodies

Like the rest of the nation, April meant an entire month in lockdown for the Henkels, following three weeks in March --- a very long time with minimal contacts.   For most people, the time is dragging, but for Mark and Hilde, there has been enough work to keep them moving just around the hilltop.  After cutting splitting and stacking all the wood from the three trees the town removed, they tackled the big job.

After 30 years of sumac growing, tangling and dying, then prickly ash filling the north edge of the hayfield, Mark and Hilde have spent two weeks working on cutting and dragging away the accumulated vegetation.  The burn pile is enormous, the brush compost pile in the edge of the swamp too high to pile more on, and there are still piles of the cut brush to haul away.  Once the DNR allows burning again (and things are getting green) at least one bonfire will burn here in Rudolph.  The second stage of the project will involve removing several downed trees and yet more prickly ash from the area of the old gold mine, which might be an even tougher effort.

John with daughters

The greening is a very recent phenomenon, following a nasty cold streak which included 3 inches of snow on Easter Sunday---and north of Rudolph got MUCH more!  Dark and cold days  allowed Hilde to complete another quilt, make a small squad of stuffed animals and re-read some old favorites.

Although Mark and Hilde are missing family very sharply, there have been adorable little letters from Hazel and video ‘chats’ with Jim’s children.  Caleb called once and decided to show Grandma  his hideout.  The dark screen revealed nothing at all, so his hideout is still a secret!  Just hearing the happy giggles is surely cheering, even when the comments are less than comprehensible.  Getting pictures of the youngsters gives the grandparents smiles as they ache to hold them.  Since both the Milwaukee and Chicago areas are still having many cases of covid, pictures and videos will have to suffice for a while  yet. 

Even with all courts closed down and the cases postponed, mark has been keeping moderately busy remotely, with calls and conferences several times a week.  He is carefully nursing along his tomato seedlings and got the proper fertilizer levels for the raspberry patch, plus cleaned up the asparagus in anticipation of fresh veggies soon.  At the moment, food supplies are all okay, but  who knows where things are going with the meat packers and farmers getting another hit?  God will provide and Mark and Hilde can always eat eggs and cheese---not a hardship!

At the very end of the month, when things warmed up and the grass began to grow, tulips began to open and more birdsong filled the air.  Even in Wisconsin, even in the year of distancing and disease, the spring does come!

March 2020 A Most Unusual Month

March 2020 has been a month like no other March, here and across the nation.  Mark and Hilde were aware early of the coming epidemic, thanks to Jim’s knowledge and vigilance.  They were well supplied anyway in the country with most things.

Before things got really nasty, Jim had a surgical procedure and Mark and Hilde got to go down to Sussex and take care of the grandkids---always a delight!  They picked them up from school, treated them with Culvers and even had a movie night (Frozen II is musical and entertaining) cuddling with the kiddos as Jim slept off his anesthesia.

The next day the happy grandparents got to walk with kids, push them on swings and then play catch before heading home to Rudolph.  It was the best part of the month, for sure!  Jim has recovered well from the hernia thing and that is reassuring for the “parental unit”s also!

About a week before the stay away from group gatherings order came out, Mark and Hilde were staying home except for the two nights of taekwondo classes.  When the “Safe at Home” orders came down, they were ready for it.  Their church has offered online services for years, so although Pastor Proeber is not seeing his congregation face-to-face, he is doing a great job of helping all worship and hear the Word.

The good thing for the Henkels is that the first two weeks of isolation coincided with the maple sap run in Rudolph---they were very busy gathering sap (it was a good run!) and dragging it out of the swamp to the milk cans in the cart, then off loading the milk cans and then cooking it all up to delicious syrup.  A point of info---milk cans are fairly heavy EMPTY and with 10-11 gallons of sap can weight 120-130 pounds.  This kind of thing takes teamwork, for sure.

As entertainment during the month, Hilde and Mark have been watching the birds migrate back in---always a treat!  At the same time, the town of Rudolph has begun the work on “up-grading” Tower Road.  This provided more of a fascinated horror as they began by cutting all the brush and trees within the right of way (they are widening the road for unfathomable reasons), including many basswood, oaks, maple, poplar, plum, apple and the remaining elms.  The road has been blocked off partially or completely several days, and one day (so far) was spent burning brush, right in the right of way.

In the rest of the time, Hilde has been sewing up a storm, completing one quilt and nearly a second one plus several tote bags and smaller projects, crocheting ornaments and mounting completed projects.  The fabric stash remaining is more challenging to blend into projects without shopping, but she will do it somehow.  Mark has been researching on wood finishes, working on radio and continuing his remote legal practice.

First blooms of spring

Now that the snow is gone, the yard work is beginning.  The downed trees from winter have been cut up, the fruit trees pruned and the many storm tossed branches cleaned up also.  There is plenty more to do in the continued stay at home period, but both Mark and Hilde miss in person church and the taekwondo classes and their students.  There will be more wood to cut as the town is taking down three more trees and they will salvage what they can.

This has been a sad and painful time for the country, and it is a time for prayer and trust.  But with spring and all the efforts across the nation, Mark and Hilde feel hopeful.

 

February 2020

A dozen Stevens Taekwondo Academy students tested successfully for new belt ranks at the Stevens Point YMCA recently.

The All Purpose Room was full of energy and pride as students of all levels and ages demonstrated blocks, kicks, forms and sparring.  Every student broke a board, showing both skill and determination.

Akiva Lyon was awarded the trophy for testing excellence as he earned his yellow belt.  Lyon, ten years old, snapped a full-sized board with a switching axe kick on his first attempt.

The testing was judged by master instructors Mark and Hilde Henkel. Master Kim Buehler directed the testing with assistance from black belts Ben Hultman and Malek Alkasrawi.

Winter Session II begins February 23 at 7 pm.  There are no  classes March 17 & 19 due to spring break.  The next testing is Saturday, April 4 at 10 am.

January 2020

The new year kicked off in Rudolph with lots of snow (Mark got to plow four more times!), very little sun (gloomy most days) and mild enough temperatures for some outdoor work.  Mark and Hilde had been eying the dying birch by the big shed for a couple years, planning an approach which would not damage either shed or driveway lights, while carrying away dead branches which had fallen.  So one of the milder days, Mark pulled up the tractor, climbed aloft and trimmed the remaining branches before successfully dropping the trunk where he wished.  There is a root sprout there which should survive to replace it and some very productive black cap berries (seedy wild black raspberries) circling the stump.

The very fresh balsam stayed in good shape until Mark and Hilde reluctantly took it down in mid-January.  Taking down the Christmas tree and the colorful decorations is always a sad point in January.   However, watching the Packers lose to the 49ers was actually more painful.  They came very far this season and all the fans can hope for even more  next year!

Determined to use the dull winter time for projects, Mark and Hilde both tackled clearing out some of the years of accumulated files and oddments.  The hope is that it won’t take 48 years to de-clutter.  Hilde has been trying to organize and digitalize all the genealogy information and the many, many heritage photographs she has been given.  It is a daunting task.  Mark has years of legal files downstairs and must carefully sort through them so that all confidential material is burned, not recycled. 

Mark began a special project:  making a dining table from the red elm harvested on the Lomira land more than 30 years ago.  He has gotten the base section done,  joined the lovely elm boards for the top and now needs to do all the tricky support work.  By the time the weather permits Hilde to do the staining and finishing outside, he will have it done, ready for that final step.

Hilde has continued her craft work also, producing a slew of handmade ornaments for the coming Christmas, a bright and warm afghan and some smaller cross stitch items.  Two more duffle bags are almost complete, using yet more of the combined fabric stash.  She is contemplating another quilt and looking at more ways to use up fabric and notions. 

Hilde’s mother celebrated her 88^th birthday with a black eye form a fall, but Hilde had a nice photo from the previous month.  Arlene is resilient and cheerful and had no other injury.  She keeps busy with little sewing projects and television—Hilde calls her frequently.

The new session of taekwondo has brought a trio of students returning to the sport after lengthy absences.  It is interesting to work with this different challenge—regaining stretch and relearning forms is tough after a long absence. The high level of illness in the school population especially has had class attendance down in January.  More people enrolled than present. 

January really sped by as Mark and Hilde kept busy.  They are thinking about ordering garden seeds and more sap bags for the syrup season.  Once January is done, the winter if half gone!

December 2019

What a wonderful, varied and full month December 2019 turned out to be!  Mark and Hilde had no “Christmas parties” or visitors, but were able to get out and visit others, so all was good.  In addition to celebrating Mark’s birthday, December is crammed full of birthdays:  Rhiannon’s, John’s, Hilde’s brother,  and those of two nephews, two nieces and several extended family, so lots of greetings and happiness.

The month started with snow on the 1^st and Mark ended up plowing four times during the month, a new record for December.  Hilde baked up the usual storm of stollen, cookies and other goodies and shared them with family, friends and neighbors.   There were several gifts to finish, since she made four sweaters, four duffle bags, two quilts and several cross stitch items.   She also organized the church fruit baskets for the shut-ins, on a new schedule and in a great hurry, before heading to Chicago.

Mark and Hilde went to Chicago before Christmas to help out John with child care as Evie was doing interviews, and the youngsters not happy with Momma gone.  The cuddling and feeding of grandchildren (and John) was sheer pleasure!  Rosemary at 4 months is very alert and cheerful---while being held.  Hazel is much more verbal and  definitely observant and assertive at 2 years.

The December taekwondo testing was special as Dr. Stevens was able to attend and join his senior black belts for lunch afterward.    The whole group has many happy memories of helping with past testings, so getting together again was a high point of the month for all.  The bo dan and first dan candidates did very well, and the white belts well quite good too, all making their instructors very proud.

The Christmas gathering at Jim’s house was a wonderful time (even though Hilde forgot some gifts and they had to turn around halfway to grab them before continuing!).  Jim had just finished his stunning heritage table, using great initiative to design and produce it from wood saved from the Lomira farm.  It is big and beautiful---with enough room for 11 Henkels to feast at!  Kayme filled it with a wonderful Christmas feast for all eleven, too.   It was a joy to have all five grandchildren in one happy, noisy place, and Great-Grandma Arlene was brought over for some time to cuddle and enjoy it all. 

Before heading down to John’s for a day, Mark and Jim tackled replacing one sump pump and resealing it…Mark is not happy without doing some kind of fix-up job.  The day at John’s was very relaxing…a nice endcap for the holidays before heading north to Rudolph.

 

Besides the holiday activities, the Henkels had interesting events in other areas.  They were contacted by a woman who is very likely a cousin (hurray for more family!), Mark did his recertification in first aid for the YMCA, and the mouse saga of 2019 now includes a mouse in a bottle.  Unfortunately, it was located long after dying there…nasty!  Mark also finally persuaded the new printer to accept commands from his laptop, making the office at home work a bit more smoothly.as he continues to be “Mark the Unretired”.

As predicted, the year turned out to be the wettest on record for this area.  Everyone is hoping for some return to average, as there are STILL some unharvested fields around Rudolph.  However, the milder temps around the holidays allowed for easy, safe travel, although there was fog and eerie conditions at the end of the month.  As the year ended, Mark and Hilde were happily at home, counting many blessings and wishing a happy and healthy new year to all.