August 2012 Finale

What an active month with travel, family, lots of gardening and homeowner activities.  Mark had lots of rescheduling for work and a little less time watering as Rudolph got a little rain.  Hilde continued with canning and freezing around extra meetings and then donned a hardhat for the frac sand and paper mill tour in very hot weather.  Both Henkels fit in physicals resulting in clean bills of health and managed to enjoy a few tranquil moments on the deck watching sunsets.

The end of the month was a celebration when Jim was installed as assistant professor of biology at  Wisconsin Lutheran College in Wauwatosa.  It was a special day, and having Rhi happily looking over her collection of relatives was the icing on the cake.  As her vocabulary grows, it is fun to watch her satisfaction with getting things across.  She surely enjoyed having both sets of grandparents to play ball with!  The rainy weather did point up a leak around Jim’s chimney, but he properly tarred up the flashing as soon as things dried out.

Mark and Hilde went straight from Sussex to Platteville on the 27th---extra time with family AND less time driving than going back to Rudolph and then down again.  Along the way, Mark bought a nailing gun and Hilde a sewing machine.  Our toys are all tools of one sort or another.  The nail gun was for the ‘labor day’ activities---tearing defective shingles off the north addition (about one-third of the house) and reshingling.  This was a fine father-son activity for Mark and Jim.  They used the tractor for gathering and dumping the shingles.  Some of the fiddly valley-around-the-power work was done by the light of the blue moon as the conditions were clear and lovely for it.  So August ended with the roof half off and plenty of work ahead.  There is a rumor, hard to believe, that some folks relax and vacation on holiday weekends, but no Henkel believes that.

The month of August had family members moving all over as they headed off to school and jobs.  Niece Alana headed off to grad school in Montreal, both Adam Henkel and Erich Bormann went to Madison and  Heidi Orchard is back in Missouri while her brother Curt is in Iowa.  Sometimes it is hard to keep track of this family.