June 2012

Mark checking brickwork and windows

June started with a bang as Hilde and Mark became house pre-viewers for Jim and Kayme as the deadline for getting a house loomed.  Although the housing market is said to be so good for buyers, the returning couple had nothing but troubles as they had three offers that fell through (one because of a history of troubled wells only brought to light by Jim’s aunt Terri!).  However, finally, the search was successful and Jim and Kayme officially closed on a home in the Town of Lisbon (just a couple miles from where Hilde grew up!) just at the end of June.  Jim, family and furniture will apparently arrive on three separate dates, but it will work out and soon they will be here in Wisconsin.  (the underline will NOT go away!)
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2012 chicks arrived!

Rhi's refinished bed

Mark has been spending a lot of time catching up at the office after the long time gone to trial, but he has been busy at home also.  This year he fenced the corn immediately upon planting, flushed all our home-brew watering systems and helped Hilde pick strawberries one morning.  He has been more of a mother cluck to the new chicks than Hilde, who was pretty limp with a cold/allergy/ear & sinus infection, now cleared up.  The assortment of chicks includes some Aracanas because Hilde wants green eggs for  Rhiannon.

Radio propagation has been especially strong in June, so Mark got to contact folks in several new states.  It is great to hear him talking to a staticky-drawl from Tennessee or  to guys in Oklahoma or Pennsylvania.  Mark continues to call an 2-meter activity net on Wednesday night with regulars and some  interesting surprises checking in some nights. some nights.

Despite the ‘foggy head’, Hilde made strawberry jam, froze a good supply of peas and managed to, very regretfully, retire from the Aging and Disability Resource Center Board.  After seven years, five as chair, and excitement like having two successive directors take other jobs, having nutrition and IT service need to be changed and then expanding from two counties to four, Hilde feels the agency is stable and successful.  Having just a little less on her plate will be nice.  The lovely vase of roses and kind parting words were  wonderful.

In the end of the month, while Mark assisted Jim with the complicated paperwork for a long-distance purchase, Hilde stripped and refinished the nearly 100 year-old bed that Jim inherited from his grandmother Hazel.  The bed was originally Granny Scheid’s and purchased around 1916.  Both Mark and his brother Phil slept in it in their childhoods.  Now Rhiannon will be sleeping in it as she transitions to her own room and her own bed…five generations!

Other family news for the month:  Hilde’s Dad did NOT have any more falls and his rib and wrist seem to be healing well.  Nephew Curt Orchard passed his board exams and is now a licensed pharmacist, while his sister Heidi is having a great time with her internship in Jacksonville Florida.  And THREE young relatives attended the WELS Youth Rally in Tennessee: niece Leslie Bormann, and nephews Erich Bormann and Adam Henkel.  Nephew Joel Henkel bought a house in Rice Lake and niece Alana Henkel is traveling the Midwest with the American Wind Symphony Orchestra.  The family  activities are so varied and interesting lately!

Jim noted yesterday that he completed his post doc and bought a house on the same day and wondered what tomorrow would bring.  Well, overnight he and much of Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia and DC got blasted with a nasty storm.  Thank God, he and his family are safe, and they actually have power unlike many out there.  This really has been a month of blessings.