September 2012

 September in Rudolph meant a big change in weather from the hot days for the first weekend to an inch of slushy (and unpredicted) snow three weeks later.  Mark and Jim completed the re-roofing project very nicely and the Henkel ‘girls’ had fun playing and relaxing between feeding them.  Jim got to give his Rhiannonr her first ride on a tractor, too.  It was a big help having Jim come work with Mark!

September is the peak time for budgets on the county level, so Hilde had lots of meetings, even though she missed a couple.  Her real focus was tomatoes, lots of tomatoes, as the heat with Mark’s careful watering led to a bumper crop.  Hilde made juice, sauce, ketsup, jam and lots and lots of tomato soup, plus tomatoes were given to office folks, the Lutheran school, two of Hilde’s friends, and of course, family.  As of the end of the month, there were still more tomatoes coming, at a slower rate, since there was not killing freeze thanks to covering with tarps.  The peppers came late but bountifully so there were many of those to chop and freeze.

One cold and wet morning, Mark and Hilde accompanied a forester on a 90 minute trek through the hunting land to try to arrange for the required cutting.  Hilde kept up with the guys until the very end, pride overcoming a blister and swollen ankle.  Now to see if an acceptable plan can be bid out for cutting in the next couple of years.

As always, there were several trips to fit into this month (it seemed shorter than 30 days and all high speed!)  The oldest senior masters Henkel went down to Palatine to visit John and Evie, spending a Saturday morning at the huge annual hamfest in Rockford and then sitting on the testing panel at J P Woods (where John trains currently) for 8 high ranking black belts.  That was very interesting with unique breaks and self-defense moves.  Mark went to LaCrosse with Hilde when she attended the annual counties’ conference;  from there he drove to Madison for one day and worked in the room the final morning.  This allowed them to have two lovely evenings dining and strolling along the wonderful riverfront---it was a special time.  The various trips allowed Mark and Hilde to see the last lush days of summer, the peaks of color and harvest, and of course the beautiful harvest moon yesterday, shimmering on the waters of Lake Winnebago.  Wisconsin is a beautiful state!

Hilde’s parents continue to have problems with her father falling again early in the month.  Although he didn’t break anything this time, his back gives him a lot of pain and Terri, Laure and Anne have been keeping a closer eye on things there.  The hope is that Dad & Mom will both be able to attend grandson Curt’s wedding next month in Minnesota.

To close out a month which started with Jim helping his dad put on a roof; the last Saturday involved Mark going to Sussex to help with closing leaky basement windows and figuring out the wiring problem which kept Jim, Kayme and Rhi a little chilly on the cooler nights.  Having a state of the art boiler system does help if there is no power going to the boiler.  While the guys again labored mightily and successfully, Hilde, Kayme and Rhi played and relaxed…Rhi’s vocabulary is really expanding, but she continues to use an imperative Gark! when she wants Grandma to crawl around the house with her.